Marin Arts & Culture MAC_Oct_Nov_2017_final | Page 18

The Music
Man:
Joe Agro and
The Starduster Orchestra
Noah Griffin
MA&C: Your music background. Where
are you from? How did you get started?
Where and with whom did you play?
Joe Agro: I grew up
in Brooklyn New York.
Like all good italian
boys, I started playing
the mandolin and later
the accordian when I
was about nine years
old. I began gigging
on the accordian around the city and
at Catskill Mountain resorts in my early
teens and fell under the influence of
sax players of all kinds. Sam “The Man”
Taylor, Sam Butera, Lester Young,
Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollings, Gerry
Mulligan and John Coltrane. I talked my
parents into getting me a beat up tenor
sax from a pawn shop and taught myself
how to play it. I was soon taking the sax