Heres my biography from a musical perspective.

I was born into what I would call a semi-musical environment. We had a piano, and my older brothers were given piano lessons at the insistence of my mother – who had sung in church choirs as a girl. My earliest musical memory is of The Beatles. It was 1963 (I was 5) and the song was She Loves You.

About halfway through grade 5, my parents informed me that, if I was prepared to change schools, I could take instrumental music. I had stumbled onto a little jazz music (Louis Armstrong and Mancinis Pink Panther) and was drawn to it, so I changed schools and took up the saxophone.

When I was about 16, I had a serious discussion with my father about pursuing music as a career. He advised against, but did support my attendance to college to take music.

I auditioned for Humber College and did not pass the audition. Instead I attended Mohawk College, where the music program had just started.

The Mohawk program had several jazz elements, particularly a big band run by a guy named Jim Howard. A firm believer in the Buddy Rich method of motivation (You suck!!!), Howard was a blessing and a curse. He taught us to sightread and play loud. He also convinced us that we had to practice 18 hours a day to succeed, which turned out to be a damaging attitude.

After a year and a half of the big band thing, I wanted to focus more on small group playing, so I transferred to York University and also started studying with Pat LaBarbera.

This was a good phase for me. The jazz theory lectures by John Gittins were amazing, and my workshop had some great players: Rob Frayne, Marty Melanson, and Graeme Kirkland, who was in grade 11 at the time, but playing great, of course.

In spite of good musical input, I encountered some serious challenges, all of them internal. I became frustrated with my ability to express myself on my horn, and started to face the fact that I was not going to succeed in becoming a professional musician.

I sold all my horns and quit playing when I was 23.

About 6 years later, I decided to buy a digital electric piano, and started to play a bit, just for my own enjoyment. I got heavily into MIDI gear and enjoyed the learning possibilities therein. Shortly after that Paul McKay, a work colleague, asked me to teach him the tenor saxophone.

Paul was and still is a talented songwriter who self produces an album every year or so. One day Paul asked me to come and play on one of his recordings. I refused, but he explained he had already rented me a horn and had the studio booked. I reluctantly agreed.

This started a chain of events that brought me back to playing. The big difference was that now I pursued music as an avocation, rather than a profession.

In the twenty years since I returned to playing, I have played everything from solo cocktail piano to concerts playing flute with symphony orchestra. Saxophone is still my main instrument, but I have taken up the bass (electric upright and bass guitar) and the chromatic harmonica, at which I am still a beginner.

Currently, I do a lot of playing with Tim Sullivan, a brilliant jazz pianist (and piano technician) who lives in Huntsville. I also play with Big East, a local soft rock/folk band, and participate in the pit bands of most of the local theatre productions.