I started on violin in 5th grade. By high school I had figured out that playing violin didn't seem like it attracted enough attention from girls so I took up bass guitar.

In Michigan, in the late 70's and early 80's (high school and college years) I played with a very good guitarist named Brian Koski, in an "all original jazz-fusion" group that went through a number of name changes, finally settling on "In-Flight". I started on bass with them and ended up on keyboards due to necessity.

After moving to Endicott, NY in 1983 I got involved with a couple 80's big hair rock bands that local kids were trying to form - one called "Hemispheres" (Rush fanatics) and one called "Treason", which featured a very good guitarist named Mike Fiori. After Treason broke up, I started writing jazz fusion tunes again, and roped the aforesaid Mike Fiori and some other Endicott folks into playing them (Mike Ferro on keys, several different drummers including Eric Peters, Andy Grieder on saxophone, Dave Belknap on bass, and whoever else wanted to come along). That band was called "In-Flight East" (because New York is east of Michigan) and actually did some cool gigs - including winning our category ("electric combo", I think) in the inaugural Downbeat magazine "MusicFest" battle of the bands (I think I have the magazines somewhere to prove it).

Mike Fiori moved away, and was replaced by very good guitarist Jay Poole, who commuted up to Endicott from Scranton, PA (about an hour away) to practice and play. Jay got us into the "Homegrown Music" series that was produced and aired by radio station WVIA in Scranton (I have some video and audio tapes from that, if they're still playable).

In Endicott, I actually did a gig as a hired bassist behind a series of washed-up old professional entertainers that were brought in to celebrate the opening of a new department store. That was my first and only taste of actual "professional" playing.

In-Flight East eventually broke up, and I played with vocalist Katie Scott and multi-instrumentalist Bob Cerone in a lounge & wedding act for a while, replacing their former keyboardist Dena DeRose (who went on to much bigger and better things, see www.denaderose.com ). After that broke up, I joined with very good guitarist Larry Jones (no relation) and drummer Tom Jones (no relation) in "3-Way Street". That was my first introduction to playing right-handed piano and left-hand bass (on keyboards). Katie Scott resurfaced and joined the 3-Way Street Jones boys to form "Tres Chic" which did a lot of sequenced 80's dance tunes and was really very good.

Then I moved to Raleigh in 1994, and joined with a country-western cover band named "Skeeter Hawk" which featured very good guitarist Scott Tucker. I played keyboards and fiddle for them, and that was fun too but didn't last long, as I couldn't balance band commitments and fatherhood. And that was the last thing I did until I joined Third Time Through.

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