Bio
John played saxophone in his high school years in the late ‘50s with a number of local “dance bands.” He first gigged, primarly at high school dances around the area, as a member of Paul Marcus’s “Pied Pipers.” His father’s band, the Carl Buchholz orchestra, featured many of Eau Claire’s fine players of the time: John Farwell, Loren Shelley, Hugh Mills, Marv Jacobson, Paul Rohlik, Buddy Morgan, Earl Mosel, and others. Carl brought John, his brother Jim, and Ron Keezer into the band in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.
John put his music on hold from 1964 to 1969, while attending graduate school in Fort Worth, Texas. When he returned to Eau Claire in the Fall of 1969, to take up a teaching position in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, he resumed his music, playing regularly throughout the ‘70s with several permutations of groups headed by Larry Heagle-- the Rock Bottom River Band, and Full Circle. John played regularly in the early ‘80s with Marji Rae and the Rainy day Trio. He then teamed with his old friend and colleague, Ron Keezer, in several versions of “Keezer’s Pleasers.” Keezers Pleasers, incidentally, featured two notable student musicians who went on to important and continuing later careers: Lyle Mays, with Pat Metheny’s groups; and Geoff Keezer, first with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, then a succession of Jazz’s finest players, and then his own groups.
In the Spring of 1990, John was invited to join TSR, with whom he as been associated up to the present date.
