Starting on the clarinet when he was in the sixth grade, Marty Nau gravitated toward the saxophone in the ninth grade, playing in both the junior high and senior high school jazz bands. Upon graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Navy Music Program. After coming to the Washington, DC, area in 1980, he played with such big bands as the Blues Alley Big Band, Bill Potts Big Band Guy Lombardo and others. He has performed with the National Symphony and the Richmond Symphony, and has backed up such performers as Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Daniels, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Williams, Rosemary Clooney, Ethel Ennis, Nancy Wilson, Maureen McGovern, Snooky Young and many others. He can be heard on the Navy Commodores' CD Here and Now. After playing lead alto and conducting for the Navy Commodores, Marty retired in 1997.

Currently, Nau plays in the Capitol Quartet, freelances in the DC area and travels nationally and internationally performing pops concerts with symphony orchestras. He also teaches with the DC Youth Orchestra Program and The Washington Conservatory, and teaches jazz saxophone at Virginia Commonwealth University. He leads the Marty Nau Quartet, which has recorded three CDs under an independent label, including the very well-received Strings Attached, and is lead alto saxophonist with the Great American Music Ensemble under the direction of Doug Richards. Also a Selmer clinician, Nau is active in performing jazz improvising clinics at the high school and college level.

Luis Hernandez is one of the country's top tenor saxophonists. Originally from Miami, Hernandez came to DC to play with the Navy jazz ensemble The Commodores. He has also played with the Smithsonian Jazz Orchestra, and currently plays with Afro Bop and The Commodores.