CEO Sheryl Laukat tells a little bit about the history of Cannonball...
"Tevis & I met in 1982. I was a Jr. High Band Director and Tevis was sponsored by the local music store to visit my band classes as a guest clinician.
We both loved the saxophone. It was my major instrument in college and Tevis was a professional musician, playing all the doubles, but especially the saxophone. He had a B.S.
degree in music performance. We soon married, and several years later we discovered something grand!
Tevis and I both played on valued vintage saxophones. But one day a newer saxophone came into our hands. The trouble was,
it didn't play or sound very good. Tevis regulated it and it improved, but the sound and the pitch was still lacking.
For fun, we began to experiment with the horn, altering the air flow and changing the acoustical properties of
the instrument. We were amazed at what happened! Through divine inspiration we soon became very good at altering
the pitch of any note we wanted, and changing the tone quality of the instrument. If we wanted clearer altissimo
we could do it. If we wanted more lows, or focus we could do it. Before long, it was nearly impossible to tell
the difference in sound between our valued vintage horns and this new horn and the pitch surpassed our vintage
horns. We were jumping up and down with excitement! We knew we really had something! We were so excited that
we risked everything and mortgaged our home to pursue our new adventure!
We first needed to find a place to make our saxophones."
