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Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Mark Rivera attended the prestigious High School of Performing Arts known by many as "the Fame School".
Rivera started down the road of jazz
right after graduation and by 1975 he was backing John Lennon for a number of TV
performances with a band based out of Record Plant Studios. While with Record
Plant Studios he was introduced to "Mutt" Lange and was asked to do some
recording on his albums. After a sixteen month tour with Foreigner, Mark was
called by David Brown and asked to audition for Billy Joel's "Nylon Curtin"
tour. Mark has been recording and touring with Billy now for 26 years.
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(PLEASE TAKE A TOUR OF THE SUGAL FACTORY)
Those of you who are Billy Joel fans know Mark Rivera as his lead tenor player for more than twenty six years. Those of you in the saxophone community and who play Contemporary, Jazz, Pop, Gospel and Rock & Roll also know Mark Rivera as a mega pop recording saxophone artist.
In May of 2008 while attending one of the ten Billy Joel concerts at Mohegan Sun Resort Casino I accidently met Mark Rivera in the hotel lobby. Not to "toot my own horn" so to speak Mark knew immediately who I was and of my reputation,. ... and that I had been making custom made saxophone mouthpieces for over twenty years. After talking with
Mark for a few minutes he mentioned that he had never ever
given a second thought about switching from his Dukoff D6 to another
brand. .. ..but as we talked he decided to have me make a custom
piece especially for him. About a week later -and working 24/7 I made a few pieces for Mark to play test ---we once again met (June 28th) at Mohegan Sun. Mark play tested the three pieces I customized especially him. His response was instantaneous ... as he put down the D6 he said I can "never go back to that " ... What totally blew me away as we watched Billy Joel concert that same evening of June 28th, 2008 (and of course Billy Joel featured Mark on some awesome tenor solos ) is the fact Mark used my piece in front of eleven thousand plus Billy Joel fans. Why I say he "blew me away" is because I have always recommended players to take about one to three weeks and "adopt" or "break in" there embouchure in order to adjust to the mouthpiece. Sunday July 29th 2008 at 8:30 a.m. Mark called my room and said he wanted me to make a alto mouthpiece for him. So back to the factory I went and on July 3rd just before Billy Joel was to do his ninth concert at Mohegan Sun , Mark put my alto piece on his sax and went out in front of another eleven thousand people and played his heart out . I was in total awe of both his tenor and alto sound and the ease in which he went into the altissimo registers. In summary and what I would like to say to the sax community is that after having made more than twelve thousand customized hand made mouthpieces I cannot ever recall hearing such a fabulous -powerful- fat centered sound by any other contemporary player. Mark has mastered the altissimo registers on all the saxes and the mouthpieces he received from me can only "enhance" his fantastic sound. Please take a few moments to take a video tour of our factory and see how our mouthpieces are manufactured. I am honored to have Mark River's full support and endorsement for our soon to be released "mR II" alto and tenor models .
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