I had been a trumpet player in school when I was 9 years old and I had a friend named Nate who played the tenor sax. On weekends, we would meet at his house and play our instruments for fun. Nate's family lived in a big house built out of pudding stone near the top of the hill on the street my family lived on. Nate's father played piano and would play with us sometimes. Nate's dad had a style that reminded me of Ramsey Louis, one of my father's favorite jazz pianists. I used to listen to my father's records a lot, and became familiar with them as I listened over the years.
Nate and I had a friend who lived nearby who had a drum set, and one day, we started a little quartet. For weeks we did this and one day, Nate's father said that what we could really use was a bass player.
I had a guitar, but it was a really cheap one, and I was not good at it. We were just kids, and eventually we forgot about trying to keep the band together.
It was a few years later when I was at a yard sale and there was an electric bass guitar for sale for $10.00. I had some money from summer jobs that I saved up, and I bought the bass.
I kept fooling around with the cheap six string guitar and had taught myself some chords. Once that happened, I didn’t play my trumpet much anymore. Though I was in the “All Town” band in high school. That was comprised of young musicians from all the schools in Brookline.
I wasn't happy with that band, the teacher who ran it was a person who did the sheet music arrangements for Carl Fisher, a place that provided sheet music for all the schools in Brookline and probably all of Boston. One of the prerequisites of playing in all town band was that we had to be in the marching band which played at the high school football games and memorial day parades. I think I made it through one parade, and quit.
I was not a good student, and was always in trouble for cutting classes in high school.