Sadler Stories and the Jazz Book

What if the rhythm of your life could be told through the sound of jazz?

From the segregated streets of Louisville to the electrifying stages of Montreux and the North Sea Jazz Festival, Sadler Stories and the Jazz Book traces the extraordinary journey of Robert Wesley Sadler Jr., a Marine, engineer, world traveler, and lifelong jazz devotee.

Through vivid storytelling, Sadler captures a century-spanning family history rooted in resilience, from his grandfather’s life in slavery to his own coming-of-age amid America’s civil rights movement. Along the way, he discovers how music, especially jazz, became both compass and salvation.

Part memoir, part musical odyssey, this book invites readers to feel the beat of history, the pulse of progress, and the improvisational beauty of life itself.

If you have ever wondered how a single passion can carry a person across decades, continents, and generations, embrace Sadler Stories and the Jazz Book and let the music play.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1942, Bob Sadler is the second child of Robert and Anne Sadler. Raised in the Black community during segregation, he attended Louisville public schools and graduated from Shawnee High School. After high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, training as a radar technician and serving during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with stationing at Camp Pendleton, California.

Bob pursued higher education at UCLA, Santa Monica City College, and San Diego State University, earning a B.A. in Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science, and later completed graduate studies in Information Systems at Bowie State University.

Over a distinguished career, he has held roles as an electronic technician, computer programmer, systems analyst, instructor, project manager, systems engineer, and software architect, living and working across the U.S. and abroad, including Germany.

Married to Carole Brown of Santa Monica, they raised two children, Hilary and Robert III, and share four grandchildren and a great-grandchild, with another on the way. Carole passed in 2016.

A lifelong music enthusiast, Bob’s love for jazz, blues, gospel, and classical music—particularly Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Herbie Hancock—has accompanied him throughout his life and travels.