One could say I was born into music. My father was a minister by day and multi-instrument player in his spare time. He would often accompany my mother, a singer with a fine, natural voice. Gospel was the first music I heard, and I started touching the keys of an old spinet in the living room while just a baby. At age five I started piano lessons. In junior high school I took up trumpet and baritone horn. My first exposure to jazz came at 16, my first professional gigs began a year later.
It's now been a fifty-five year career and counting, and sharing my music remains a great joy. I spent four years as a bandsman in the US Navy, fifteen years as a studio musician in Hollywood and then, in 1984, came to New York City to take the next step as a composer, sideman, and leader of my own ensembles.