When he was 12 years old, Pat DeRosa and his mother went to the Bowery in Manhattan to find a secondhand saxophone. They settled on a Selmer Mark VI for $25, which Mr. DeRosa would continue to play for nine decades.
Over his long career Mr. DeRosa, of Greenwich Street in Montauk, performed with legendary musicians including John Coltrane, Lionel Hampton, Dick Hyman, Glenn Miller, Toots Thielemans, Boyd Raeburn, Tex Beneke, and Percy Faith. In Hollywood, he found himself on a film set with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and was taken to lunch by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
He taught music for 27 years in Huntington, and in 2018 the Guinness Book of World Records named him the World’s Oldest Professional Saxophone Player. In October, at age 100, he delivered his swan song, performing at an early birthday party and jazz jam at the Dunton Inn in East Patchogue.
Mr. DeRosa died in his sleep last Thursday at Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson. He was 101.
Pat A. DeRosa was born in Brooklyn on Dec. 6, 1921, to Jerry DeRosa and the former Anna Castellano. He grew up in South Huntington. By high school, he knew he was going to be a professional musician and began studying flute and clarinet.
Working for the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in Bethpage, where he built aircraft parts, he was granted a few deferments before being drafted into the Army Air Forces. “They wanted me to be a radio operator,” Mr. DeRosa recalled. “I told them, ‘No way, I’m a musician.’ ”
He was sent to Greensboro, N.C., for basic training, he told The Star in 2014, “after which I joined the concert band as well as the 20-piece dance band.” As he neared a deployment to the Pacific theater in 1945, the United States dropped two atom bombs on Japan, ending the war. He concluded his service in San Antonio before returning to Long Island.
After the war, he was recommended for work at the Latin Quarter, the famed Times Square nightclub opened by Barbara Walters’s father, Lou Walters. While working there, he received a call from the bandleader Tommy Tucker’s manager. “They needed a sax player immediately,” Mr. DeRosa told The Star. He set out for Chicago, and from there to gigs across the country as the band made its way to Hollywood, where it would appear in a film biography of the Tommy Tucker Orchestra.
With the Big Band era fading, Mr. DeRosa went to the Manhattan School of Music, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He started teaching in 1954, initially in the Huntington School District and then in South Huntington, while continuing his professional career. He performed at well-known venues like the Paramount Theater, the Waldorf-Astoria New York, and the Plaza Hotel. He also had a band of his own, the Long Island Sounds. Later, he performed with his daughter, Patricia DeRosa Padden of Montauk, on piano and his granddaughter Nicole DeRosa Padden, also of Montauk, on vocals.
In Huntington in the 1960s, the owner of a music store told Mr. DeRosa that John Coltrane was looking for a duet partner. They played together for a few years, he remembered, until Coltrane’s untimely death, at age 40, in 1967.
Mr. DeRosa performed with Lionel Hampton at an inaugural ball for President Richard Nixon, and in the 1970s he served as master of ceremonies for many memorable jazz concerts at Gosman’s Dock in Montauk.
He retired from teaching in 1978 but continued to play professionally. He took his saxophone to stages across Long Island, regularly sitting in with South Fork musicians. In recent years, he was inducted into the South Huntington Hall of Fame and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. In 2020, shortly after Mr. DeRosa celebrated his 99th birthday, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc read a proclamation acknowledging his skills and contributions.
Mr. DeRosa and the former Constance Dennis were married for 53 years, until Mrs. DeRosa’s death in 2009. In addition to his daughter and granddaughter, he is survived by a son, William DeRosa Sr. of East Islip. Five other grandchildren survive, Krista Schulman of Islip Terrace, Jacqueline DeRosa of Bay Shore, William DeRosa Jr. of Islip Terrace, and Tracy Kraft and Jaden Kraft of Deer Park. Two sisters, Dolores Rocco of East Northport and Rosalind Johnson of Huntington, also survive. A brother, Clement DeRosa, who was also a musician, died before him.
Visiting hours were on Sunday at the Giove Funeral Home in Selden. A funeral was held on Monday at St. Mark Catholic Church in Shoreham, where Mr. DeRosa was a member, followed by burial at Pinelawn Memorial Park in Farmingdale.
