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Bachelor’s of Music
Jazz Composition and Arranging
Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA, Class
of 1981
Former Faculty member Berklee, 1982–84
(teaching Jazz Harmony, Theory and Arranging, Ear Training, and Listening
and Analysis) |
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Gig Highlights (and
lowlights!)
Highlight – The San Francisco Blues Festival, the Monterey Blues
Festival, the Toronto Blues Festival, all with Zakiya Hooker (John Lee’s
daughter)
lowlight – the Vacaville Blues Festival
Highlight – House pianist at the Steigenberger Hotel (Berlin,
Germany), at the Lakeside Restaurant (Zurich, Switzerland), at a five-star
hotel in Tunis, Tunisia for many months
lowlight – busked in the London underground (subway), didn’t make a
dime (or a pence)
Highlight – Cruised on the Caribbean to Jamaica, Cozumel, and Grand
Cayman, on the Mediterranean to Rome, Naples, and the Greek Islands
lowlight – cruised to Freeport and Nassau twice a week
Highlight – Have played at many of the finest establishments in the
San Francisco Bay Area (Plush Room, Herbst Theater, Moose’s Restaurant,
Washington Square Bar and Grill, the Sweetwater Saloon, the Fillmore, the
Boom Boom Room, Bing Crosby’s, Joe Dimaggio’s, Chateau St. Jean, Auberge
du Soleil, the Claremont, the Saint Francis, the Sir Francis Drake, the
Fairmont, the Sherman House, the Hyatt, Hilton, Parc 55, Jukebox Marriott,
the list goes on)
lowlight – have played in some of the crummiest, dingiest, dirtiest
bars and clubs one can imagine, fistfights, bottles thrown, drunken
brawls, have played where the solo pianist outnumbers the audience, have
seen far too many hotel lobbies
Highlight – Music has taken me all over the world
lowlight – had to wear a puffy-sleeved, salmon-colored shirt in a
country rock band at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio (outside
of Cleveland), we played the same show without changing a note 455 times
in one summer
Highlight – Have been fortunate enough to make my living as a
professional musician for over 25 years
lowlight – retirement? Never heard of it …
Highlight – Have met (and continue to meet) the greatest, most
creative and interesting people in the world and am welcomed as a musician
wherever I travel, I have wonderful friends in many countries and all over
the US
lowlight – not a one!
Greatest Highlight – studied and played with the late, great Thad
Jones in Denmark, who I consider to be the heir to Duke Ellington as the
top big band arranger/composer in history
Final Highlight – the musical community in the San Francisco Bay
Area, all the “cats!”
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