About Us
Meet John Gill
Got A Gig Music serves the Sacramento region. Over the years, I have had the wonderful opportunity to work on the instruments of many Grammy Award Winning Artists and we continue this at ‘Got A Gig Music’.
We recently had the pleasure of reuniting with Branford Marsalis in our new location. I performed emergency repairs to his Yamaha Soprano Sax for his performance at Three Stages in Folsom. I’ve known him for years and this is the fourth or fifth time that I have worked on his horns over the last 20 years. Wonderful person and monster player! These are the ‘special’ times! His show was awesome!!
The lovely and talented, 2 time Grammy Award Winner, Mary Youngblood, brought her alto flute in for service. I performed a clean, oil and adjust on her instrument. She was a joy to meet and work with, along with being a wonderfully creative flutist and person.
Other Grammy Award Winning Artists whose instruments I have had the pleasure to work on are: Gerry Mulligan, Bob Mintzer (Yellowjackets) and Jeff Coffin (Dave Matthews Band).
John has been in the music business for over 55 years. He had a quartet in Detroit that played every weekend for years and learned the repair trade from a second generation family of technicians. John rebuilt the instruments for many principal players in the Detroit Symphony when he worked for Herb Couf, the saxophone maker. He taught the ‘Design and Mechanics of musical instruments’ for 8 years at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, School of Music and serviced the instruments of the Omaha and Lincoln Symphonies. He spent many years at Yamaha Musical Products and Warranty Service in Grand Rapids, testing and setting up instruments prior to moving to Boston to build flutes for the Verne Q. Powell Flute Co. and perform restoration work for Wm. S. Haynes Flute Co. He also spent 5 years teaching a professional development workshop for school band directors for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and summer workshops for Gordon College.
John has been the general manager of numerous repair shops from Boston to California and has traveled to many countries, purchasing musical instruments for serious musicians here in the states. He has been involved in their design and manufacturing and has trained many workers in Asia to meet US standards. As many local musicians know, we have been developing our own line of Pro Flutes and Pro saxes. Mr. Mark Tulga bought our NorCal Baritone Sax and our J. Gill Professional flute to play in the Music Circus productions here in Sacramento. Adjunct Professor of Flute at the University of the Pacific and Principal Flute of the Sacramento Philharmonic, Mr. Mathew Krejci plays our J. Gill Artist Model Flute as his backup to his gold Brannan Flute.
John opened the ‘Got A Gig Music’ music store and ‘Pro Repair Shop’ years ago in beautiful Midtown Sacramento, serving the needs of the professional musicians and aspiring students in Northern California by providing prompt, professional repairs when they want to perform their best. Our new location has a lot of convenient free parking and is right off I-80! We feature personalized professional custom repair services in comfortable surroundings, catering to those who “Got A Gig”! We invite you to stop by and experience for yourself the pleasure of playing your treasured instrument in top playing condition as you enjoy expressing yourself musically and artistically.