My first music teacher was my father - a self taught amateur musician. He played piano, guitar, clarinet, saxophone and sang. I think I was around 4 or 5 when he taught me to play “by ear”.

When I was 7 or 8 my parents sent me to Vera Radcliff (Vera Thompson) for classical piano lessons. She was a wonderful teacher and gave me a great theoretic and harmonic foundation. I was, however, a terrible student. I didn’t want to practice classical piano. I just wanted to play jazz.

I met my first jazz teacher, the wonderful Lloyd Abrams, when I was 16, and studied jazz piano, harmony and composition. I was in heaven.

Since then I have studied with many great teachers including classical piano with Dale Reubart, Steven Lansberry, Glenn Geary and Henri-Paul Sicsic, and jazz piano with Elmer Gill, Ted Collins, Don Thompson, and briefly, Roland Hanna and Bill Evans.

Over the years I’ve worked as an accompanist, performer, studio musician, arranger, composer, and producer covering most styles of music, but my first love is jazz, and my favorite thing to do is perform live in concert halls and jazz clubs.

Throughout my life I have had the honor and priviledge of performing with many great artists. Please see the experience section of my website to see all the wonderful performers I have worked with.