"I was driving in a 1988 Chrystler K-Car on my way to work a little part time job I had in high school. I was 16. It was 1991 which was the 200 hundredth anniversary of Mozart's death, although there were Mozart celebrations going on all around me; I was oblivious to all of this of course because I had no affinity to ANY kind of music at that time. I was driving east along Fennell Ave in Hamilton approaching Upper Wentworth. I remember reaching over to turn on the radio. The first thing I heard was an announcer on a show called 'Morning Mozart', talking about how the station would be playing Mozart's complete works throughout the year. I don't think he announced what he was about to play, because I'm sure I would have remembered the name of the piece at such a critical moment in my life. I must have been hardwired to be so profoundly moved by the sounds that followed. When the music started it really was like getting suddenly struck by a lightening bolt! I didn't have any understanding about WHAT I was listening to, let alone why I found it so compelling....... all I remember thinking was 'this is the greatest music i have ever heard in my entire life!'

The following day I went directly to the public library, and maxed out my library card with scores of Mozart's... a cross section of things.. symphonies, concertos, sonatas, operas, and the famous requiem, although I didn't even know what requiem meant. I went home and with my rusty piano hands, tried to pluck through the scores.. line by line. This was the first time I went back to the piano with any serious intent since my lessons from 3 years old to 10. I remember feeling the joy at how every instrumental part in a score sounded like a beautiful melody all on its own. That influenced me. I even tried singing the opera parts! Every piece was so consistently brilliant, i couldn't find a work that didn't amaze me in how perfectly balanced all the materials of the composition were laid out -almost like this artist had discovered an algorithm to effortlessly whip out music with the perfect ratio between tension and release. I found particular joy in the way he finessed his way through different keys centers.. it was so wonderful I would laugh out loud. so my 16 year old life took on an eccentric twist. I couldn't get enough of this guy: I taped every program of Morning Mozart, I looked at books, photocopied pictures, made frequent trips to the library, watched the movie Amadeus about 300 times... I even tried to get my high school friends into him, in fact, another pinnacle moment was Dec 5, 1991... through a snowstorm, I traveled to Toronto for the first time to hear the Mozart Requiem at Roy Thompson Hall. It was one of the first times I heard a live orchestra. I sat really close. the audience was still but i was in ecstacy... To experience the beauty of this music for the first time, superimposed with the company of two gorgeous girls I convinced to come with me was a great moment in my teenage adolescence. but most of all, more than walking through the snow with a girl in each arm... I wanted to write music that sounded like Mozart's music.

Being completely unstudied at composition, I had no idea how to start or what to do... so I just played and wrote whatever came to mind and hoped for the best. Unbenownst to me, this process was my entry into the jazz world.

I would stuff my so-called compositions into my gym bag and bring them to school. I discovered a loft off from the stage in our old music room where I would retreat every lunch hour to work on these pieces.

I'm certain that my high school music teacher, Ron Palangio, must have thought I was completely out of my mind. When I was 17, he said to me, "if you like composing music, you should play jazz because you improvise in jazz - as if you're composing on the spot." I think that was the first time I heard the word 'jazz', and I didn't know what 'improvise' meant either... not surprising is that the concept of 'improvisation as spontaneous composition' has had a fundamental impact on the style of jazz I play today.

I often get asked the question.. "who first got you into jazz?" While most people might say, my father, or hearing a classic jazz album for the first time, my honest answer is "Mozart got me into jazz" which makes this anniversary of Mozart's birth, sort of an anniversary for me too."