VERO BEACH — At Vero Beach High School, there are “band moms,” zealous volunteer supporters of the award-winning marching band. And then there are band babies – James Archer’s parents met while playing in the band.
The home-schooled son of a calculus professor and a post-office employee, Archer learned to sight-read at 13 and ended up studying with Stan Getz’s teacher. Today, Archer is a jazz saxophonist who survives on what he earns at his passion.
“Music is my day job,” he says.
With a hodgepodge of gigs in an amalgam of styles, Archer is the rare jazz artist who lives off his instrument.
He supplements the tip jar by teaching eight to 10 private students, as well as an hour a week in two public schools – Sebastian River High School and Lincoln Park Academy.
Archer makes regular appearances at the Vero Beach Museum of Art’s Jazz in the Sculpture Park series.
In an area where the few live music venues tend to hire soft rock or blues bands, and cultural events and fundraisers gravitate toward classical performers, the museum has been a strong supporter of jazz even before beginning its five-concert series last year.
Though the museum has used Archer for other events, it is hardly enough to sustain him.
As a result, he travels regularly to Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Jensen Beach.
He is often invited to play for various gigs staged by the Fort Pierce Jazz and Blues Society, whose members jam every Tuesday evening at the Sunrise Theatre’s Black Box Theatre.
He will join in on a Big Band jam Nov. 29, billed as being “For Dancers Only.”
On Jan. 8 in Sunrise’s main theater, he will play with an 18-piece tribute band featuring the music of Benny Goodman.
For the most part though, it takes some flexibility to pay the bills.
Last week, he started out playing at Port St. Lucie’s Club Med.
On Friday night, he morphed into a rock musician to play with a band in Hobe Sound.
Then, on Saturday, he strayed only slightly from his genre to play with a blues and Dixieland group at a Jensen Beach bar called Crawdaddy’s.
All of this, on the heels of a trip to Tokyo where he sat in with musicians so good he had trouble keeping up.
Born and raised in Vero, Archer was infused with a love of classical music – his parents played it frequently in their home.
“Classical music was always very soothing. But I always thought it was something I couldn’t do,” says Archer, who says he had a “pretty strong dose of ADD growing up.”
He went to St. Edward’s School until second grade, when his parents decided to teach him at home.
“I was having difficulty keeping up in school,” he says. “At the same time my grandparents were needing help.”
His mother, Gay Archer, a former St. Ed’s teacher who went on to become a professor of calculus at what was then Indian River Community College, quit her job to school her son at home while tending to her parents.
Like many home-schoolers encouraged to take part in outside activities, James was fond of acting, and performed in a few plays at Riverside Children’s Theatre.
At 13, he signed up for the theater merit badge at a week-long summer Boy Scout camp.
