During his 69 years, Kenneth Fisher played tenor saxophone in all the best jazz clubs in Pittsburgh and at many hot spots in New York City, the Caribbean and Europe. And while his musical talent never won him as much fortune as it did local fame, it also helped spark the love of a good woman -- his wife, Jeannette.

One night in the spring of 1965, Lee Neal had spent the evening on the town with Jeannette Mitchell, her sister-in-law. The two women walked into the now-vanished Loendi Club in the lower Hill District, their last stop of the evening, at about 2 a.m. and heard Mr. Fisher finishing his final song of the evening, a tune she remembers as "Where There is Space and Time."

Miss Mitchell asked him to play it one more time.

"She loved the way he played it, and just fell in love with that song," Mrs. Neal said.

The sisters took Mr. Fisher to breakfast at Boykins Restaurant, a diner that once existed on Herron Avenue, and Mr. Fisher and Miss Mitchell soon became a couple that never parted in life, Mrs. Neal said.

Mrs. Fisher died in 2001. On Oct. 25, Mr. Fisher died as well, of lung cancer at the age of 69.

Mr. Fisher grew up in the Hill District, attending Weil Elementary School and Schenley High School. At 13 or 14 years old, he and his friend Harold Young joined the other boys hanging around the back door of the Crawford Grill, waiting for jazz greats such as John Coltrane to come out and talk to them during breaks. While the musicians were playing, the boys took turns looking in a small back window at the legends playing inside, Mr. Young said, and they poked anyone who lingered too long at the window.

"There was only room for one head at a time to look in," he said, chuckling.

In the 1950s, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Young were still too young to hang out at the Musicians Club on Fullerton Street -- which was razed along with the rest of the lower Hill District to make way for the Civic Arena in the late 1950s -- where African-American jazz musicians learned from each other. But they learned from musicians playing on the street, and later they began studying with seasoned jazz musicians teaching at the Musicians Club after the players moved to a new club in East Liberty, at Lincoln Avenue and Pride Street.

Although he did not attend formal music school or college, Mr. Fisher learned to play the tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute and recorder -- as well as to read and compose music -- from those other musicians and through many hours of practice, Mr. Young said.

Eventually, Mr. Fisher grew skilled enough to make a living as a musician by playing in jazz clubs all over Pittsburgh. In in the 1960s, nightclubs such as the Crawford Grill, the Too Sweet Lounge, the Hurricane Lounge and Mason's Bar were the hottest spots for live jazz between New York and Chicago, and Mr. Fisher played them all. Mr. Fisher formed his own group, the Kenny Fisher Quartet, and also began touring clubs in New York, California and overseas.

When he was home, Mr. Fisher's popularity was enough to draw a full house, and then some, to the Homewood bar, Gail's Lounge, that Mrs. Neal once ran on North Braddock Avenue. Business was slow when she first opened, Mrs. Neal said, so Mr. Fisher -- by then, a good friend -- offered to play there on weekends for next to nothing.

"Then there were so many people lined up, they were out in the street trying to get in," she said.

In his later years, Mr. Fisher played at the African-American Jazz Festival in Oakland, was featured in the book "Pittsburgh Jazz" by John M. Brewer, and received an award for being a "saxophone extraordinaire" from the Legacy Arts Project, a group dedicated to honoring cultural contributions by African-Americans. He also played with the Pitt Jazz Ensemble at the University of Pittsburgh, according to his step-granddaughter, Helena Malone, of Penn Hills.

For 35 years -- until last year, when lung cancer made him too weak to continue -- Mr. Fisher also spent his Saturday afternoons and many evenings at the Homewood branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Ms. Malone said. There, like the musicians who once served as mentors to him, Mr. Fisher taught the saxophone, clarinet, flute and recorder to hundreds of children, teenagers and adults who signed up for music classes from the non-profit Jazz Workshop organized by Mr. Young.

What began as a volunteer project ultimately won enough grants to pay Mr. Young, Mr. Fisher and the other teachers a small salary. But no one was in it for the money -- "music is a love affair, and if you get paid that's icing on the cake," Mr. Young said. They often gave free lessons to children who couldn't afford the $65 tuition, if the students were willing to do small jobs such as emptying waste baskets or making copies, he said.

"One of the things we realized was that the discipline set up through music helped them achieve whatever their goals were," Mr. Young said. "So we said, 'Let's just give them the lessons and give them a little something to do in exchange.' Turning a kid down because he doesn't have the resources is a crime."

Visitation for Mr. Fisher is from 2 to 6 p.m. today at Mt. Gilead Church, 740 South Ave., in Wilkinsburg. The funeral is at Mt. Gilead tomorrow at 11 a.m., with burial to follow at Greenwood Cemetery in O'Hara.

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