Savannah’s famous mouthpiece is JodyJazz. JodyJazz is the company of Savannahian Jody Espinoza. But he was not always our mouthpiece he had another life first. He played his saxophone and was quite the performer with the likes of Mel Torme’, Milton Berle, Patty Page and Country music icon, Eddie Arnold, Louis Bellson, Don Alias, Lew Solof, Vic Juris, Harvie Swartz, Bob Moses, Dave Douglas, the Charlie Persip Superband, Rachel Z, Rolf Sturm, Rob Henke, and Mark Feldman. Espina has been a regular substitute in the pit Orchestras of Broadway. He has been a featured soloist on the soundtracks to three Mirimax films, and a documentary about Holland entitled, “Sex, Drugs and Democracy,” as well as Guiding Light, The Reading Rainbow, and television shows in Japan and Spain. He has recorded with Illuminatti, Brilliant Coroners, Feed The Meter, Splatt, and The Walter Thompson Orchestra, whom he plays with regularly. His tours include The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Illuminatti. He was a premiere performer before he became our mouthpiece.

.As if that was not enough Espina was the Director of the Jazz Department at the prestigious Hoff Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New York. In Barcelona he was Professor of saxophone, clarinet and flute, and the Director of the Big Band at the Aula de Musica i Moderna Jazz. While in Barcelona, Espina also taught at Taller de Musics and at The Lutier School of Fine Arts. He was a teacher of music theory and other things before he became our mouthpiece.
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He was a composer before he became our mouthpiece. Espina received a Meet the Composers grant for his composition, “The Universal Symphony”, in which he conducted his professional quintet and fifteen of his students.

In 2000 Espina started his company JodyJazz which makes mouthpieces for saxophones. His mouthpieces are state of the art and a much desired item for musicians. They feature exclusive patented designs, ground-breaking innovations and state of the art manufacturing techniques, each mouthpiece is individually hand-crafted in the USA. Because of the exponential growth of JodyJazz, which Espina founded in 2000, he made the difficult choice to stop teaching and devote all his time to JodyJazz in 2005.

He moved to Savannah in 2008, bringing two employees. His staff has since grown to over 15. He has also relocated his manufacturing and distribution facilities to the area. Now Mr. Espina is Savannah’s mouthpiece. He can be heard playing Latin Jazz at the Rancho Alegre on the weekends and he has been known to make guest appearances at the Savannah Jazz Festival and other local venues. So the next time you want to hear someone from Savannah Mr. Espina and JodyJazz are our mouthpiece of choice.*

*thanks to information on the JodyJazz website which was used quite liberally.

The Gretsch company started in 1883 by an immigrant who lived in Brooklyn. His name was Friedrich Gretsch. The company would become world renowned for its musical instruments. By 1915 his son who now was the company head opened a ten story factory to better serve the demand for the company’s work. Less than forty years after Friedrich Gretsch started the company, Gretsch was being recognized as the “largest musical instruments manufacturer in the United States”.
The company would develop the multi-ply drum lamination process. This led to the creation of the world’s first “warp-free” drum hoop. But the ability to attract the stars of the music world to their instruments would be the ticket to their phenomenal success. Country music icon Chet Atkins became the first signature Gretsch artist. George Harrison played a Gretsch Country Gentleman on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” and sales of the iconic guitar model surged. Gretsch supplied the guitars and drums for “The Monkees” television program. Their instruments were everywhere.
When Fred Gretsch, Jr. decided to retire he sold the family-owned business to Baldwin Piano Company. Seventeen years after the company was sold, Fred W. Gretsch, the founder’s great-grandson, bought back the company. The company under his leadership attained the status once again of fine workmanship and leadership.
Fred has lived locally since 1978 and met Dinah here. They raised their children here and consider Savannah “home.”In 1989 the offices of Gretsch were moved to Savannah. A drum factory was established in Ridgeland, South Carolina thirty minutes from Savannah. Fred and his wife have served on the advisory board for the Salvation Army, Savannah Corps.  Dinah devotes much of her spare time to board work UGA Music Business Program, Sacred Heart Church in Savannah, Ga. Savannah Country Day School & the Georgia Musical Hall of Fame Foundation. They have established the Gretsch Foundation which launched GuitarArt, an initiative to repurpose used guitars as artwork that schools and other non-profits can auction off at fundraisers.
The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum had an exhibit called the American Sound & Beauty exhibit, showcasing 75 vintage Gretsch guitars. This was the largest collection of stringed instruments ever displayed by the museum. The Gretsch company stands alongside of Benedetto Guitars as Savannah is a music making city.
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Savannah has always been a town of music. Johnny Mercer was born and raised here. Tom Turpin was a revered ragtime music composer was born here. King Oliver of big band fame spent his final years here. We have a world class Music Festival. The list of our contributions I have already spoken about in some early blogs in June 2016. But Savannah has also become the town of musical instruments. We have three companies that make the instruments the stars play. Benedetto is one.

When he was young Robert Benedetto made a guitar out of wood scraps and even cut-up the kitchen table, his sister’s bed, and a bookcase all for the sake of his art. The making of guitars. This would be the start of a legendary career as a guitar luthier (a stringed instrument maker). In a sense to work with wood was in the blood. His father was a cabinet maker.

He was inspired by an experience he had of watching instruments being made at the Gretsch factory in Brooklyn. He would choose for himself a Chet Atkins 6120, the signature instrument of Gretsch, which he played in his early career musician. In 1983 Benedetto studied violin lutherie. It is said he was the only archtop guitar maker ever to do so.  This would greatly influence the guitars he made. Today, he has personally handcrafted nearly 1,000 instruments, including 500 archtops.

From 1999-2006, Benedetto had a licensing agreement with Fender Musical Instruments to produce his models in a small, controlled manufacturing environment. After this stint he was ready to work for himself. So in 2006, Benedetto joined forces with Howard Paul to create Benedetto Guitars, Inc, in Savannah, Georgia. In 2015 he went into semi-retirement. The job of making the guitars has fallen to Benedetto’s longtime apprentice, Master Luthier Damon Mailand as Production Manager. The same workbench that Benedetto used is used today by the luthiers of Benedetto Guitars.

It was said of Benedetto: ‘Bob Benedetto is the foremost builder of archtop guitars in the world. With tools that had belonged to his grandfather and tools that he made himself, he started making guitars entirely by hand (in 1968). He rose to become the standard bearer of a tradition of hand craftsmanship that threads its way back through the work of John D’Angelico, Orville Gibson, Lloyd Loar and even further to the centuries-old reverence for artistry and craft that is so much a part of the Italian and Italian-American heritage.”   Tom Wheeler, Renowned Guitar Historian, Author of The Guitar Book; American Guitars; The Stratocaster Chronicles; and a former Editor in Chief, Guitar Player Magazine. It has also been said ‘I can think of no two people in the history of lutherie who have done more to increase appreciation for the archtop guitar than Bob and Cindy Benedetto.” Randall Kremer, Smithsonian Institution.

What was once a rambunctious young guitar maker has created a long tradition of guitar making that continues here in Savannah.
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I am running my errands for the day. On the radio making an argument against the futility of gun laws Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, is saying you cannot regulate human behavior. Now this came as a surprise to me as I stopped at a red traffic light. I thought even deeper about this when I pushed down on the gas pedal at the green light and realized my seat belt was too tight. I continued pondering this great truth as I listened to Trump tell NFL teams they should make a rule against kneeling during the National Anthem. I turned on my signal to make a left hand turn. On the radio I heard my friend Rush Limbaugh declare that the first thing that liberals do is want to talk about gun laws after a mass shooting. This was his lead story at noon following the night of horror in Vegas. His show spent the day defending the Second Amendment of the Constitution. 
Meanwhile Trump was trying to regulate the conversation about gun control until a more appropriate time. Congress continued to march forward with their new law striking down the ban on selling silencers on guns. I remembered when Rep. Scalise was shot playing softball and we were told to wait to have the conversation later at, everyone say it with me, ‘a more appropriate time”. Of course I think of this because Rep. Scalise, after months of recuperating from his gunshot wound, returned to Congress a couple of weeks ago. The appropriate time has not occurred yet.
I stopped for lunch. I am thinking how Las Vegas is the city of gun shows which I hear we cannot regulate. It is an impossibility. We can send a man to the moon but regulating gun shows is beyond our reach. So you can buy a gun without a background check at gun shows because we do not have the technology to run background checks. Now gun shops do it all the time but it is beyond the capacity of our technology without invasion of the gun owners’ rights. The waiter comes to my table and swipes my card and I sign his handheld credit card machine with my fingernail. I sure hope my credit card is not over its amount or I will have trouble paying for my meal.
So I am back in my car and they say Congress is praying for the victims of Las Vegas. This seems appropriate. Taking my cue from them I stop my car and pray that I can deposit my check to cover my debit card lunch expenses before they are registered. It occurs to me it is probably a better use of my time to wait for a more appropriate time to deposit the check. Thank-you Congress the problem is solved.
So I finally make it home. I read on the computer that gun sales are up because gun owners are afraid guns may be banned. I think I need to predict mass shootings so I can invest in gun companies and make grand profits. I come across pictures of Vegas victims on the internet. My head spins; I have lost the ability to feel sorrow; mass shootings are too commonplace. Maybe this is what they mean when they say wait until an appropriate time to talk about gun control. The right time is when I am too numb to care. 
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Her name was Marie Louise Scudder Myrick. She was descended from Dr. Nathaniel Scudder, a prominent physician and member of the Continental Congress. He signed the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, and was the only member of the Continental Congress to be killed in action during the Revolutionary War.
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So it was no surprise when she married Colonel John Bascom Myrick, another prominent soldier who had fought in the Mexican War. He served as attorney general of the county in Tennessee where he lived. In 1891 the couple moved to Americus, Georgia. Colonel Myrick purchased the Americus Times and the Americus Recorder newspapers, which he consolidated into the Americus Times-Recorder between 1890 and 1891. This new newspaper was started in 1892 and still runs today.

In 1895 the Colonel died unexpectedly. Marie became the owner, manager and editor of the Americus Times Recorder. At the time it was considered one of the "best and most politically influential papers in the state." For twelve years she was the grande dame of Americus. She lived in one of the most prominent places, the “Crow’s Nest” of the famed Victorian Windsor Hotel in downtown Americus. As the editor and owner of the Americus Times she was the first woman in the South to hold this distinction. She proved to be a stellar newspaper editor and was respected throughout the South as she continued to build the reputation of the paper. Never one to mince her words she was known for being out spoken on the issues of her day.

In 1907 she sold the paper and retired. In 1913 she moved to Savannah, Georgia to be close to her bachelor son Shelby Myrick. They built one of the first homes in the new Ardsley Park, the first suburb of Savannah. The imposing red brick colonial was built on a full city block which was made up of 16 lots. When built, it featured eight bedrooms and six baths, plus tennis courts with stables behind. The home is known as Myrick Place. It is said that age did not slow her wit or strong voice on the issues of the day. Prior to her death, Louise had the remains of her late husband relocated from Oak Grove Cemetery in Americus, Georgia, to the Myrick Family tomb at Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah.

Although she only spent her later years in Savannah, she made a lasting impression. She paved the way for other women editors. The Savannah Morning News’ first woman editor was Rexanna Keller Lester.  Under her leadership, the Savannah Morning News was awarded for general excellence by the Georgia Press Association. The newspaper also received the 2002 Batten Award, the nation’s highest honor in community journalism, for a series on improving public education and the 2000 Batten Award for Civic Journalism for a series on aging. The newspaper received the 2000 Southern Journalism Award for reporting on prison health care. Lester served as a Pulitzer Prize judge for national reporting in 1997 and commentary in 1996 and as an international judge for Society of News Design World’s Best Designed Newspapers 2002.
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Today women editors, though few, are not considered an anomaly. Thanks to women such as Marie Louise Scudder Myrick and Rexanna Lester.