"Six or seven people wanted to get a ska band together," he begins. "They had this other kid...playing alto and it didn't really work out.... They got along, but musically it wasn't right, so I gave them my name and number."

With his knowledge of alto and baritone sax, and a flute thrown in good measure, Natchez was a good match.

He started practicing with the band, and three years since, "we've changed a lot. Jesus, I see videos of when we first played...we've grown a lot."

For Natchez in particular, the growth has been emotional as well as professional. He has to grope for words when he describes his music. It's always difficult to explain the dynamics of a personal evolution.

"Music was always something I loved doing, it was always really fun? But when you get a chance to play professionally, when you get to see...it's a lot of stress performing, but it can be a rush too," he says.

"Leading sort of a musical lifestyle made me, and I'm sure a few other kids, really serious about pursuing music. Also just playing together for three years, we're tight, we're tighter than we used to be."

"Another thing is that the learning curve for younger musicians is a lot steeper...Ben, our tenor sax player, who just started playing six months before I met him, is so much better now."

"He's really remarkable," Natchez says solemnly. "I can't imagine teaching myself to play saxophone, especially at a relatively advanced age. He was a junior in high school when he started."

Natchez himself began at the tender age of nine, taking advantage of the free musical lessons the school district offered to his fourth-grade class. But he didn't get serious about it for another four years, when a new teacher revealed a side of music Natchez hadn't seen before.

"My previous teachers had been classically trained. Improvisation was really, really fun, and none of my teachers were ever willing to introduce me to that. I went to this teacher and at the first lesson he was like 'Okay, play over this' and just popped in a tape of a rhythm section playing a blues progression. It was so much fun. Introducing that element of music--fun--was new. Before that my teachers had been like 'okay, play your scales,' which you have to do and it's good that they told me to do that," he says.

"This teacher did tell me to do that, but at the same time, he'd be like 'you work on that, and then you have fun with it.' That really got me into it."

And Natchez went with it.

"I started playing a lot more...it became such a release. Whereas before, music was sort of something I did in a very abstract way--I had a saxophone--now it started playing a day to day role in my life."

Skavoovie's serendipitous arrival was the perfect channel. The younger ska audiences, unlike analytic jazz afficiandos, were receptive to the band's energy. And the fact that ska is still a burgeoning genre made the band's success possible.

"In Boston, there's a scene, you know, a very private scene," he says. "I think there were like us and maybe five other bands, and everyone was really friendly."