There are moments that don't feel like much at the time — and define everything, looking back.
Christmas 1967. An electric guitar. And something shifts.
Born Into Sound — Montclair, New Jersey, 1954
I was born into a family where music wasn't something you studied. It was something you lived with. It was present in the house — in quiet moments as much as in louder ones.
My father always kept an acoustic guitar nearby. He loved jazz, but more than any single style, he valued curiosity. He taught my brother and me how to listen openly, without hierarchy — how blues, jazz, folk, rock, and gospel could all speak different dialects of the same language.
One of my earliest memories is of my uncle Freddie. He played electric bass with Billy Ford and the Thunderbirds. When I was barely three years old, he began showing me how to hold the instrument, how to feel the strings, how to listen before playing. At that age, it wasn't about technique. It was about touch, vibration, and attention.
Classical Clarinet — Learning Structure
When I entered school, another dimension of music entered my life. In first grade, I began studying classical clarinet — a practice that would stay with me through the end of high school.
Growing up with the spirit of music in the home, while learning its formal language in the school, gave me a unique perspective. At home, music was intuitive, expressive, and communal. At school, it was structured, disciplined, and precise.
Those years taught me that music lives both in instinct and in structure. That freedom deepens when it's supported by craft. That listening is not passive — it's an active, practiced skill.
Christmas 1967 — The Electric Guitar
Long before I imagined a life shaped by recordings, tours, and collaborations, I understood music as a place — one that could hold both rigor and imagination.
Christmas 1967. An electric guitar changes everything.
Not because it replaces the clarinet — but because it opens a door to something I didn't yet have a name for. Music stops being something I do. It begins to feel like something I enter.
Those years didn't point toward a career. They pointed toward a way of being.
And that orientation — toward listening first — has stayed with me ever since.
This is the first in a series tracing 60 years of music — from Montclair, New Jersey to ZenMelodies. Christmas 2027 marks the 60th anniversary of that first guitar.