I've played drums since I was 15. My sisters and I all played instruments. I kind of started with piano and then I actually played saxophone with a jazz band in middle school. So, any knowledge I had of jazz music was from playing alto-sax back then.
When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
I played the sax at school. I was in marching band.
My grammar school graduating class in 1941 had a little party for 13 or 14 year-old kids. [Trumpeter] King Kolax's band played for the party and Gene Ammons was playing tenor saxophone with the band. And that's when I said, "That's it!" Just like that, tunnelvision ever since.
I got my first set of drums when I was around 3. I went from band to marching band to Latin jazz band - it's like riding a bike.
I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.
I attended public school in Houston. I took piano lessons for several years, and in high school, I played trombone in the marching band. I remember especially enjoying two seasonal activities: ice skating with the Houston Figure Skating Club in the winter and visiting an aunt and uncle's farm in West Texas in the summer.
I was not a band geek, per say. But me and my two older sisters played instruments, so I would come home and my sister Dana would be playing the clarinet or playing the piano, and I would play the saxophone, my other sister would be singing, my mom would be singing. I was not afraid to be musical. That was not something that I thought was uncool.
I was in the De Witt Clinton Hight School marching band. One of the worst bands ever formed. When we played the national anthem, people from every country stood - except Americans.
Among other things, Marching Band forms state that if my kid starts acting like a li'l jerkface on a trip, Marching Band can call and command me to pick up my li'l jerkface.
I played in the high school band. I was the one baritone saxophone out of 80 other people. No one could tell whether I was hittin the right notes or the wrong notes.
I played in the high school band. I was the one baritone saxophone out of 80 other people. No one could tell whether I was hittin' the right notes or the wrong notes.
I played the tuba in high school. I wanted to be a member of the marching band. I thought, what can I play that has the most effect? What can I play to get people to laugh?
I enjoy playing the band as the band. I 'be' the whole band and I'm playing the drums, I'm playing the guitar, I'm playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.
Both my brothers played football. My mother had season tickets as a school board member. I was in the band, my sister was in the band. The thing was, the unifying civic activity was obsession over high school football.