Then I left that school and I went to Cerritos College, which was in southern California; they had one of the best big band programs in the country at the time.
I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.
Then when I was in grammar school I played the clarinet, and then, after clarinet I played the flute in college orchestra - besides singing in the college chorus and things like that.
