AN INTERVIEW WITH LARRY MAXEY - The University of Kansas

A: Michigan State University. There was a very distinguished teacher there by the name of
Keith Stein, who was the reason I went. He wrote a well-known book called The Art of
Clarinet Playing.
Q: You lived at the school then.
A: Oh, yes.
Q: Were you in a fraternity or did you live in a dorm?
A: I was in a music fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha, which was quite unique. Usually it is just an
honorary fraternity, but we financed and bought a house, which I think was the only Phi
Mu Alpha fraternity house in the country. Some brave faculty member signed on to
guarantee the loan. The house was very successful, although I doubt it exists now.
Q: And you were all musicians.
A: Right. It was a good experience.
Q: That would be a great thing to have in common. Did you have jobs in college?
A: I was in a dance band that was very popular and worked a lot. In the spring we had jobs
every Friday and Saturday night. In the winter it would be most Friday and Saturday
nights, in the fall a little less so. In those days fraternities and sororities hired a real band
to play for their dances. This was a seven-piece group, two saxes, trombone, trumpet,
piano, bass and drums. It was a really good band and it was a lot of fun to play in. It was
quite lucrative for that time, and I made at the time a fair amount of money doing this. Fr
Q: What did you call yourselves?
A: The leader of the band was Bob Eberhart and his orchestra. The band was well-
established before AI got there, but he had an opening and heard about me, so he
7