GREGORY Lé DON – The Saxophone Guy

Gregory Lé Don’s life changed when doctors found blood clots in his lungs on Christmas Day in 2010. For a while, he thought he would never play his soprano saxophone again.

After being cured, Lé Don made music a priority. Today, his business card reads, “Saxophone for praise, weddings and events,” and on Dec. 1, he could be found playing his saxophone near Northwest Second Avenue and Northwest 24th Street in Wynwood.

Before he got sick, Lé Don says he never would have considered performing his music on the streets.

“That was below me,” he says. “But now, after that, you begin to realize, sometimes you need to humble yourself. As a matter of fact, I was so arrogant, I came out here because my daughter wanted to paint out in public, and I came out just to make sure she’s OK. And I thought, ‘Well, since I’m out here, let me go ahead and play.’”

At first, he kept his saxophone case closed. He didn’t want passers-by to feel they had to give him money.

“Some young lady came by, and she stood there, stood there and stood there. Then, she finally asked me very politely, ‘Sir, can I give you some money?’” Lè Don recalls. “And I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want that money in my clean saxophone case.’ But then I said, ‘No you better humble yourself.’ So I said yes, I opened my case up, and before I left in the afternoon, the whole case was full of money. And so I said, ‘Maybe I should do this more often.’”