One of my earliest memories... I knew three full verses of the Star Spangled Banner when I was seven or eight years old. And one of the nuns discovered this phenomenon and I was actually sent around from classroom to classroom to do the whole thing.
I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician.
I'm an exhibitionist, I was an exhibitionist as a kid.
Honesty is the cruelest game of all, because not only can you hurt someone - and hurt them to the bone - you can feel self-righteous about it at the same time.
If there was ever any truth to the trickle-down theory, the only evidence of it I've ever seen was in that period of 1960 to 1965. All of sudden they were handing out major label recording contracts like they were coming in Cracker Jack boxes.
Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz.
