At
Taft, Ed Mazur participated in sports and music. John “Pops” Rapier, Taft’s
first band teacher (who wrote “The Taft Founders March” aka the “Taft Loyalty
Song”) referred him sophomore year to a saxophone teacher in Chicago, Pop Wells,
where he honed his skills on the alto sax and jazz. It was the era of the big bands. He got a chance to play around the city
in extra-curricular gigs.
“It was very exciting if you were a musician,” he told the audience. He
got an opportunity to play regularly with a college band at Northwestern
University which needed an alto sax. They appeared up and down the North Shore
and at dances at Evanston’s Orrington Hotel. One night they were on a live
broadcast on WBBM-Radio. Most of the musicians went on to professional careers.
Mazer and three other Taft jazz musicians would gather at least once week
for milkshakes (to go with their bag lunches) at the Hedlin’s Dairy Store on
Northwest Highway just west of Nagle (now replaced by a self-storage facility,
Hedlin’s was a full-service dairy supplying schools and other businesses). As
regulars, they eventually “reserved” a table and would stand for a toast when
After graduation Mazer was recruited by Uncle Sam, serving in
communications and assigned to Japan with Gen. MacArthur during post-war
occupation. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill when he came home and chose
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for the free education offered to WW
II servicemen.
U of I was known for its architecture program, so he set aside his
sax and chose to be an architect, figuring music could be a backup career. He
specialized in public spaces because the government had paid for his education,
he explained. He worked for the state university systems in Wisconsin, Florida,
Arizona and California, earning special recognition for his work.
When he and his wife retired to Florida, they did volunteer work,
and he started a second career as an artist.