MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
I just found the website of a trumpet player with whom I had the privilege of studying the trumpet for a year in college, Mr. Mike Wade.
I'd re-establish contact, but I'm afraid to tell him that I really haven't been keeping up with my horn. Playing jazz is that one dream of mine that slipped away. The one dream that required me to take a left turn in that fork in the road of life, and I ended up taking a sharp right. He told me I needed a mere two more years in the woodshed. I'll never forget what he said.
"You're 21 now? You practice this [stuff he gave me to work on], you could be bad by 23."
And, here I'm supposed to tell a man who jammed with Earth, Wind & Fire that I didn't follow through. Worse yet, I only ever made it 1/5 of the way through the stuff he gave me to work on. Then again, I suppose he'll be glad to know I've picked up the horn again and have been playing in church regularly for the past year.
At the risk of sounding too whiney, I'll share about how I was twice offered lessons with a Cleveland jazz trumpeter Kenny Davis, who toured briefly with the Duke Ellington Orchestra under Mercer Ellington. Another chance passed up.
I just found the website of a trumpet player with whom I had the privilege of studying the trumpet for a year in college, Mr. Mike Wade.
I'd re-establish contact, but I'm afraid to tell him that I really haven't been keeping up with my horn. Playing jazz is that one dream of mine that slipped away. The one dream that required me to take a left turn in that fork in the road of life, and I ended up taking a sharp right. He told me I needed a mere two more years in the woodshed. I'll never forget what he said.
"You're 21 now? You practice this [stuff he gave me to work on], you could be bad by 23."
And, here I'm supposed to tell a man who jammed with Earth, Wind & Fire that I didn't follow through. Worse yet, I only ever made it 1/5 of the way through the stuff he gave me to work on. Then again, I suppose he'll be glad to know I've picked up the horn again and have been playing in church regularly for the past year.
At the risk of sounding too whiney, I'll share about how I was twice offered lessons with a Cleveland jazz trumpeter Kenny Davis, who toured briefly with the Duke Ellington Orchestra under Mercer Ellington. Another chance passed up.
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