DON ALIQUO
Genres: Hard Bop, Post Bop • United States

Growth is hardly a new theme for reed player Don Aliquo. Mentored from childhood by his father, the still-active 93-year-old saxophonist Don Aliquo Sr., he has grown steadily as an artist and educator in his own right and his body of work shows it. Don was born in Pittsburgh on May 10, 1960. His father, a proud Italian, hooked his son on jazz at an early age, including John Coltrane’s Giant Steps (“Coltrane was my main inspiration”) and Sonny Rollins classics including “Strode Rode” and “Pent-Up House.” When Don Jr. began listening to pop-inclined crossover saxophonists including Ronnie Laws, Grover Washington Jr., and Tom Scott during high school, his father countered by playing more Trane, proclaiming, “That’s the real deal!” Don started out on clarinet and wanted to keep that as his main instrument as he got older. “I didn’t want to play sax,” he says. “But my father said I read more...