"It's all about the passion..."

 

If there's anything 50 years of living on planet Earth has taught me, it is simply this; if there's no passion, there's no point. There has never been a time in my life when I was not passionate about music, and most especially drumming. I truly believe that God weaved that passion into my fiber while I was still in the womb. My mom agrees. 

 

My parents bought me my first drum kit when I was 9 years old, more as a measure to prevent me from destroying any more furniture by drumming on it than anything else. We didn't have much money, so I never had the opportunity to study with a teacher until I could pay for lessons myself. Nonetheless, I had great teachers growing up - guys like Steve Gadd, Tris Imboden, Stewart Copeland, Airto Moriera, Steve Smith, Peter Erskine and Vinnie Colaiuta... I became a student of all the drummers, on all the records I could get my hands on. I became a master mimic. 

 

After high school, I began to study with Luigi Waites, a brilliant jazz drummer and vibraphonist, and found out that being a mimic isn't enough - "a mimic can only recreate, only a musician can create music". Studying with Luigi inspired me to pursue my passion in a way that I had not previously considered, and in 1989, I entered the Jazz Studies program at the University of North Texas, where I was blessed to study with Henry Okstel, and along side of guys like Keith Carlock, Jim White, Jim Riley and Rich Redmond.

 

After nearly 30 years of playing sessions and teaching in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, with such incredible musicians as Christian Schultz, Tony Palos, Russ Hewitt, Thomas Brownlee, John DeBellevue and many, many others, I have returned to Omaha, bringing my passion, and experience, home to play.