Sean Folsom lives in a pocket-sized one-room cottage just beyond Carmel Valley Village. He owns the adjacent main house, but rents it out to help support his three children – and to fund his ever-increasing collection of musical instruments.

“The collection used to be absurd, now it’s ridiculous,” the 58-year-old Folsom says through a bellow of laughter.

He says he hasn’t taken inventory of his instruments recently, but guesses the number is “over 1,000.” Even more incredible than the size of his collection is the fact that Folsom can play all of them and can speak in depth about their origins and influences.

Folsom sits at the foot of a twin bed across from a small fridge. His tight squint reveals no evidence of actual eyes below his golden eyebrows. His round physique offers a jolly complement to his contagious laugh. His words describe a journey full of mind-expanding history, mythology and personal experience that surround his instruments, many of which he keeps in a Monterey storage facility.

The collection includes the basics – guitars, flutes and clarinets. It also includes rare antiquities from nearly every continent: a Hungarian hurdy-gurdy, an Irish bagpipe, a Russian horn, a 48-key concertina and a cho-tonka (a North American wooden flute from the Lakota Tribe). The newest addition is a Georgian bagpipe encrusted with jewels, which Folsom says is one of two in the world. He helped restore the other, which is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Folsom keeps at least 200 instruments on hand in a walk-in closet nearly as big as the cottage’s main room. They are kept in worn leather cases of different shapes and sizes, in tattered suitcases and in plastic bags.

Makeshift laminated photocopies with each instrument’s history accompany every piece in his collection, though Folsom never needs to refer to these “cheat sheets” himself.

During some of Folsom’s encyclopedic explanations of his instruments he launches into French, Spanish and Irish Gaelic without warning. Not only is he fluent in all three languages, he consistently recalls exact dates in international history that accompany the stories, as well as the correct spellings of every place and name he mentions. It’s not hard to believe that Folsom has studied music on his own while making his living as a pro musician in and around Monterey County for the past 42 years.

“You may say I was conceived in music,” Folsom giggles, sipping a cup of Tetley’s British Blend tea. “[My parents] believed that musicians hit all the high spots of life; in fact, they met at a dance.”

Folsom believes that the combination of hearing “a lot of swing music” as a child and having a father who sang every time Sinatra and Perry Como came on the radio initiated his passion.

Folsom acknowledges his middle school for further encouraging him to pursue life as a musician.

“I owe it to school programs. Tuesday was music appreciation day,” he says.

“We’d close our eyes and just listen… and imagine. It was education and entertainment.”

Based on Folsom’s early scholastic memories, he arranges his current performances to evoke similar results: a combination of entertainment and history.

“I believe that education can entertain and entertainment can educate,” he adds.

Folsom plays for all types of audiences: conference attendees, kindergartners, college students. He recently played at Monterey’s Christmas at the Adobes and with the Cabrillo String and Suzuki Music Program at Cabrillo College.

Folsom’s love for music isn’t confined to the melodies of faraway continents. He loves rock, the blues and, of course, the instruments associated with them.

Like many people in the country, Folsom found freedom through music during the ‘60s. He played saxophone with Ron Wilson, who wrote the surf mantra, “Wipeout.” He also played with renowned blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield at the Fillmore West in 1969.

As the night progresses and Folsom’s tales continue, his small bed becomes blanketed with instruments, cases and photocopies. Among the instruments are three saxophones of different sizes.

“I started playing three at once after listening to Roland Kirk,” Folsom says as he begins strapping on each saxophone.

Kirk, a blind jazz musician of the ‘60s and ‘70s, was famous for playing multiple instruments at the same time.

Folsom opens his mouth as wide as a snake about to feed on a house cat and plays a three-part harmony on all three instruments that nearly blows the roof off his humble abode.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SEAN FOLSOM AND HIS INCREDIBLE COLLECTION OR TO HIRE HIM FOR AN EVENT VISIT HOTPIPES.COM/SEAN.HTML OR CALL 659-2548.