Kanstul Music

The Instrument You Trust from the Name You Trust

Jack Kanstul

Jack Kanstul was raised in a musical family. His father, Zigmant Kanstul, was a pick-up drummer in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in his teenage years. When he married his wife Jackie, they moved to the Southern California area where they raised three sons, Zig, Jack, and Mark. Upon moving to California, Jack's father became employed at the F.E. Olds & Sons Band Instrument Company. It was there he learned the art of instrument making under the renowned Foster Reynolds, who was then plant supervisor.

Jack started his musical career at age 10, taking up the trumpet. He had the opportunity to study with some of the finest brass teachers in the Southern California area. Among them were Harold "Pappy" Mitchell, James Stamp, and Claude Gordon. (Meet Claude or visit his Web Site) Jack recalls what it was like to grow-up in the Southern California music scene of the sixties and seventies:

"Orange County had only 200,000 people in 1960. When I took my lessons from Pappy Mitchell he lived on the beach in Corona Del Mar and you drove right by John Wayne International Airport. The airport at that time only handled small planes, and was out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by brush. I used to take lessons with my brother Ziggy and we would play trios of what Pappy called Old Chestnuts, Jazz Standards. These standards stayed with us the rest of our lives as he said they would.

Our family also got involved with the Drum & Bugle Corps music scene in the early sixties. My brother Ziggy joined the Boy Scouts and they had a Drum Corp, Anaheim Scouts Troop 72, which later became the base for starting two great Corps, the Velvet Knights and later the Anaheim Kingsmen. When we started in the scouts we played single piston bugles and advanced to piston rotor instruments. My father instructed the drum line. Joe Lintz who started me on trumpet and also worked at the F.E. Olds Company instructed the horn line.

In 1963 we broke away from the scouts and started the Velvet Knights. My brother Ziggy and I were two of the original thirteen charter members. My father and Joe Lintz made the bugles for the corps in their spare time and were responsible later on for getting Olds in the bugle business. That also eventually led to my father designing the very first Marching Brass for the marching band market.

Most of the Big Bands were still around in the sixties and they all eventually played at Disneyland. They still used tickets for rides in those days, so any employee could get up to two people a day into the park. I had friends who worked there and made sure to get in when the bands were playing.

One time I heard Count Basie playing at Disneyland, and Sarah Vaughn was in the audience and came up on stage to sing. Another time Doc Severinsen and his "Now Generation Brass" played. I went back stage with a friend to meet him and he discussed with us the difficulty of playing a trumpet and likened it to a Cobra that can turn on you at anytime.

Not only did I hear bands at Disneyland but I had the opportunity to play there for many years as a fanfare trumpeter in Fantasy on Parade. Our section of eight trumpeters was under the skillful direction of Ron Logan, then director of bands at Long Beach City College, and now in charge of Entertainment at Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida.

Ron would call my brother and I Zig and Zag.

During this time I had the opportunity to study under another well known teacher Mr. James Stamp. Jimmy was an outstanding musician. We would go up the I-5 freeway into Hollywood for our lesson at his studio. He would accompany me on the piano as I played through different etudes. Because he was a classically trained musician we went through all the French Conservatory Series. He also encouraged solo literature and transposition, always to the accompaniment of the piano. Truly a unique man and a unique musical experience.

When I was 19, my father joined the Benge Trumpet company as the factory manager in charge of all production. Later, when Benge was bought by The King Musical Instrument Company, my father became a Vice President of King in charge of the Benge division. During that time I had the opportunity to study with Claude Gordon. He was truly one of the greatest Brass instructors of our time. He always gave credit to Herbert L. Clarke who he had studied under. He simply expanded on what Clarke had taught him. He would sit behind a desk and write out my lesson as I played. When I asked him why he never played along, he simply said, "You're not paying me to play. You're paying me to teach you how to play." And that he did. Claude said, "If anything was worthwhile it would stand the test of time." He taught me many things.

Jack was the Sales Manager for his father's business,
Kanstul Musical Instruments, from January 1994 to August 1996.