I was born into Jazz. It permeated everything around me from the music of Billie Holiday with Lester Young and Charlie Shavers, and Carmen McRae to listening to my mother reminisce about her weekly trips as a teenager to the Apollo theatre to hear the kings, queens, princes and princesses of Jazz. But the deal was sealed when I was eight years old, my cousin put the bell of his trumpet to my chest and blew Intermission Riff. At fifteen I started playing drums professionally, I was a card-carrying, working musician. That was long-ago and far away. I’m still digging Duke, Pops, Count, Bean, Lady, Bird, Miles, Trane…..It’s my all-consuming passion (along with art).