David Baron Stevens
Extended Bio

EARLY YEARS

David Baron Stevens was born in 1980, in Los Angeles, California. His father, David Leubo Stevens is a Romani mechanic from New York with a natural talent for music and dance. David Sr. met his mother, Sonia Flores, an immigrant from El Salvador who entered the USA at age 8 with her father and family. At age 6 DBS he received his first instrument, a Casio keyboard which had a record function. It wasn’t long before he was composing and multi-track recording songs on his cassette recorder to impress the cutest girl in class.

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EARLY STUDY OF MUSIC

After his family broke up and his mother moved him away from his father and Los Angeles to Central California, namely the small dairy town Tulare, DBS began to study music in the public school system at age 12 with Susan Burley (aka Shagoian). Susan’s sheer love and respect for jazz and big band music as well as her ability to introduce to her students to some great local professionals, such as her late brother Paul Shagoian, Les Nunes, Adan Infante, and many others, led so many of his contemporaries who went on to careers in music and are eternally grateful for her guidance and structure.

 

Credit is also due to his dear uncle, Manuel Flores, a trumpeter from Los Angeles, who gave him his first and only lesson during his childhood. One summer, when he was not even 16 years old, he sat him down and they spoke about young DBS’ desire to be a pro in music. His words changed the life and trajectory of that young directionless boy:

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“Son, if you want to be a professional and get paid to do this, you need to do what everyone else does: go to work 6 hours per day, and then you’ll get paid. We musicians have two full-time jobs. One is to perform, and the other is to prepare to perform.”

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Immediately he went back home, broke up 6 hours into a full-day’s schedule, starting at 8:00 am and accounting for long tones before his first toilet break. After two months of this focused study and pursuit of mastery, he would be on the path to being offered his first professional job as a saxophonist before the end of that year.

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He was later honored by offers of entry and scholarships, from not only California State Universities, Fresno and Northridge, but also famed Berklee College of Music in Boston and The Juilliard School in New York.

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DBS passed the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE) in late 1996, essentially graduating from High School a year and a half early. Quickly he registered for classes at Fullerton College in south Los Angeles, known for its jazz program. He was ready to begin his life.

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This meteoric rise in the music industry, along with his life, would be nearly completely cut short in May 1997. DBS was involved in a car collision that left his body shattered and in a coma for 3 days, only to wake with complete paralysis in the left side of his face. He was unable to play the saxophone among the other horrors he was to face in recovery, some of which are still felt to this day.

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DBS’ characteristic determination soon took hold. September of 1997 saw the first intentional movement of a muscle in his left face. Weeks later he could sustain a note on the sax without leaking air through the weak side of his mouth. By December he filed an audition, against hundreds of other young California saxophonists. His competition was from places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and every rich town in between with every kid having private lessons for years, unlike him, who couldn’t afford lessons and nearly had to quit study over his family’s financial status. He was soon advised that he had earned the top spot in the State of California for the Alto Saxophone.

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In early 1998, while a student of Tulare Western High School (Tulare, CA, USA), DBS represented his little dairy town in the middle of the biggest farm in the USA (aka The San Joaquin Valley), in his position as the Lead Alto Saxophone in the IAJE/CMEA California All-State Jazz Ensemble led by guest director Dan Gailey of University of Kansas. 

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In 2005, while a student of College of The Sequoias (Visalia, CA, USA), he earned the 2nd Alto Sax position for the IAJE Community College All-Star Jazz Ensemble, representing his school among all community colleges in the United States.

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That year he also completed dual-Associate of Arts in Instrumental and Vocal Music, both from College of The Sequoias, in Visalia, California, USA.

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EARLY CAREER IN MUSIC

Soon after his near 400 hours of training, and at the age of 16, barely able to drive, he joined the College of The Sequoias Thursday Night Jazz Band, led by one of his long time mentors Bill Butts, and full of many of his current (at the time), former, and future teachers, as well as some truly seasoned professionals. Through this band, he had the honor of meeting and supporting such legendary artists as:

 

Bill Waltrous, Pete Christlieb, Gary Foster, Steve Allen, Eric Marienthal, Wayne Bergeron, Ed Shaugnessy, Bill Cunliffe, to name a few. As a result he soon learnt how to connect and work with talents of this caliber, on his own.

 

This would be, in fact, where he learnt most of the most important lessons he ever gained in his career. It also led to a call for a job with legendary Fresno bandleader Joe Lenigan of the Statesmen Big Band, who performed big band music for some of the highest-profile events in the area and raised funds for California State University, Fresno scholarships. Some years later, DBS’ voluntary work with that band would come back around in an offer of a full-ride scholarship from the same university.

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The band under his own name began performing around 1999, in Visalia, California, on Main Street at Visalia Coffee Company. Within months, he could be found performing at any number of establishments along Main St. with his own band or others, as well as in Tulare, and soon all over the Central San Joaquin Valley.

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In late 1999 DBS began working in Los Angeles with Wayne Foster Entertainment, a corporate band based in Southern California. Their performance on New Years’ Eve, 1999 aka “The Millennium”, was in Las Vegas, Nevada, at The Mirage Hotel, opening and closing for Lionel Ritchie. It was truly a life-changing experience for a teenager and marked an incredible comeback for a kid who had, not long before, nearly died and couldn’t walk or pee normally, let alone perform at the level required for such a show.

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The early 2000s saw his entry into the tribute band scene of Los Angeles where he began to perform with a band called Steely Fan Band with new classmate and friend, the late great Benny Golbin. Often at home at shows at Paladino’s on Reseda Boulevard near Cal State Northridge, where he soon came into contact and began working with other bands on the scene, such as Which One’s Pink, a Pink Floyd Tribute.

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A LIFE AT SEA

More information to come soon…

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EXPANSION TOWARD THE EAST FOR BUSINESS AND FAMILY

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MOST RECENT ENDEAVORS OF STUDY

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MOST RECENT ENDEAVORS IN THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD

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