ng broadcasts on Cleveland's radio station WHK and WJAY. Musicians Guy Lombardo and his brother Carmen were then active in Cleveland, and Leeson began directing the Lombardo School of Saxophone by early 1927, which Carmen had started in 1926. His approach to classical saxophone playing differed from jazz and dance saxophone music popular at the time, and helped promote classical saxophone style in a mainstream medium. A writer in the Hollywood News said that "in Leeson's capable hands, the saxophone no longer the blatant jazz instrument of popular conception, but an instrument of really beautiful tone color . If there were other saxophonists who could play as Leeson does, the saxophone would speedily make its appearance in the symphony orchestra." During the early 1930s, he joined the faculty at the Hollywood Conservatory of Music and taught there for several years. He considered his formal "concert debut" to have been a Hollywood Conservatory recital on June 11, 1931. By 1934 he was working and performing in New York, including an October 1934 recital at The Barbizon Hotel. In July 1936 he visited a series of midwestern and southwestern U.S. campuses offering summer musical institutes. The following summer Leeson taught at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, as he did in 1939. From 1934 to 1939, Leeson collaborated with American composer Paul Creston, resulting in several major pieces for the classical saxophone repertoire, which they premiered. Leeson and Creston recorded the composer's "Suite" (a-sax/pno) in 1938 for New Music Quarterly Recordi