MY STORY (so far)

There are a multitude of ways you can look back at your life and talk about how you got to where you are from where you were. Call it what you want, I prefer the idea of divine orchestration (to use a musical term). My parents were both music educators in Chillicothe, Ohio where I was born and grew up, so I have been involved with music literally my entire life. My mom has a picture of me on her lap at a concert as a baby that appeared in our hometown newspaper because the photographer was amused that I was waving my arms trying to conduct the band like my dad was doing on stage.  My dad was a band director (in fact he was the only band director I had from when I started in 4th grade until I went to college) and my mother was a choir director and church organist. Simply put, music was as natural to my existence as breathing. And in my house it was EVERY kind of music. As a kid I saw the Columbus Symphony, the ballet, Maynard Ferguson, Woody Herman, the first tour of the Marsalis brothers (when other people were just finding out who they were), Fred Waring, Glen Miller, I was at the very first Drum and Bugle Corps International championship in Whitewater, WI in 1972 (and LOVE drum and bugle corps to this day), and so many more! Pop, rock, you name it, but jazz was king. So always in my mind I was going to be a band director. I'll come back to that.

I started with private lessons on clarinet from my dad and piano with my mom, but as there was every kind of instrument in the house I dabbled at all of them. At the end of my 8th grade year my dad brought home a the marching version of a French horn called a mellophone and so I played that in marching band for the next three years. Half way through freshman year the jazz band baritone sax player had to drop out so I took over that role. We played Maynard Ferguson's arrangement of Star Trek the next year which featured a flute solo so I learned how to play flute. By this time I had begun writing songs and started a rock band with me as the guitarist. I switched from clarinet to French horn (my first true love) for symphonic band my sophomore year and junior year to tenor sax in jazz band.

In spite of growing up immersed in music I went to college as a business major in accounting with the idea of being an entrepreneur of some sort. I was playing in the wind symphony and jazz bands on a saxophone performance scholarship (because the French horn studio was full and no scholarship money was available) and quickly discovered that the only thing I really wanted to do was practice the sax. After my first accounting class sophomore year I made the switch to music education and graduated with a vocal and instrumental education degree. Academic classes were stagnant and came easy to me, but the ever changing, always challenging complexity of music won out. I practiced. Every chance I could. Before breakfast and 8:00 am music theory. Between classes. Sometimes through classes. After work late into the night. After graduation I landed a job with a band in Columbus - Arnette Howard's Creole Funk Band - that was the most popular band in town and worked probably more than any other band the mid-west. We did close to 300 performances a year, and when we weren't working I practiced.

In July 1994, after 6 years with Arnette I moved to Nashville in order to have the opportunity to play on bigger stages and try to get into the songwriting scene. I began working regularly with the Wooten Brothers the week after I moved to town playing every Wednesday night at 3rd and Lindsley and other clubs and events in Nashville. In October, thanks to the platform that the Wootens provided and particular thanks to studio icon saxophonist and Nashville legend Mark Douthit, I began touring with Take 6. That job proved to be the door that opened up the opportunity to play for so many other incredible artists: Donna Summer, Englebert Hemperdinck, Denny Jiosa, John Novello, T. Graham Brown, appearances on the Rosie O'Donnel Show, The Tonight Show, Live at the House of Blues, and so many more.

But when my wife and I found out we were expecting our first child I faced a decision: be at the doctor appointment with her to hear our first child's heartbeat in the womb or be in a hotel in Moscow on a tour of Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.I still hope to see Moscow some day, but for me the decision was easy. I went from up-and-coming receiving offers from the likes Michael Bolton and Joe Cocker to stay at home dad overnight and have never looked back. My only true regret is that I couldn't live both of those lives but I will never regret the decision. Being a husband and father is the best "job" I could ever have. Fortunately I have been able to continue performing with big artists who keep their performances primarily to weekends and one-off dates that don't require me to be gone for long stretches of time, and now that my kids are grown I occasionally take a short stint out. This past month I played a wine and jazz festival in Georgia with guitar great Denny Jiosa, Rudy's Jazz Room in Nashville with Grammy winning pianist John Novello and with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

Now back to the music education degree. A great friend and trumpeter who I worked with for several years in a local Nashville band, Matt Nygren, was the lead band director at Brentwood Academy. He continually told me that one day there would be an assistant band director opening and he was going to get me there and it eventually happened. For the past 16 years now I have been part of a dream team of band directors among a dream team of teachers, staff and administration at Brentwood Academy, first as assistant band director and now lead band director. I still play A LOT of music professionally and I have been in rehearsal with a new project, RHYTHM(S)MYTH, with percussionist/musician extraordinarie Chris Kearney which is set to perform our first concert on August 22nd, but during the academic year (and beyond) I work with young people. Our roles as teachers at Brentwood Academy is far more than just classroom expertise and allows us the opportunity to help guide students during their middle and high school lives - lives which have become far more difficult than what I grew up with.

My musical journey is not over, but my real "story" will end where I am right now. Husband of Karen Wills (32 years and counting) and father of my now grown daughters Amalia and Kaleigh.

Thanks for being a part of my story.