THE STORY (SO FAR)

I was born in Philadelphia, moved to Edmonton when I was nine. Started performing music in junior high school. My first professional gig was for a carton of cigarettes and a case of beer when I turned 15. (Those cover songs were still in my repetoire when I had a duelling piano show 40 years later.)

I studied classical piano with my mother until I was 3. Then I went rogue and continued to learn by ear. My mother told me my first lessons were while I was still inside her. She’d play Bach and I would stop kicking to listen.

I spent a year touring the world with a folk rock band with my high school friends playing our own material. This convinced me audition to be a Composition major at the University of Alberta and was accepted without revealing I couldn’t read music. That was in 1971. Four years later I was writing for symphony orchestras and followed that with big band arranging and jazz studies at North Texas State University.

I have been a full time professionally working musician ever since.