To me, everyday I teach and play music is a gift.

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I have loved, studied and played music since I was a young child. After high school I began touring professionally and taught percussion classes in my home town of Albuquerque, NM when I wasn't on the road. After a few years of touring and teaching, I received a scholarship for jazz performance at Arizona State University where I studied under Chuck Marohnic (pianist for jazz drummer Buddy Rich) percussionist J.B. Smith, Latin percussionist Dom Moio (author of Latin Percussion in Perspective) and Gunther Schuller, the legendary composer who worked with such legends as Miles Davis and Charles Mingus. After college I returned to touring, performing my own style of percussion based music and sitting in with many different bands from rock and blues to jazz to country. I'm open to all kinds of music and am always trying to learn to be a better player and teacher!

 

Moving to Portland was a dream come true since there are so many artistic and fun people here ready to play all kinds of music. I found my home!

 

These days I stay busy as a music professor at Portland Community College, teaching privately, composing my own music and performing with my current bands Small Million and Ghost Feet, (both of which were on the Willamette Week's "Best New Band" list of 2023) while also contributing to many other acts in Portland.

 

Musicians I've played shows and/or worked with: Spoon, Phantogram, The Raincoats, Aurora, Com Truise, 1939 Ensemble, Gunther Schuller, Maynard Ferguson, Bobby Shew, Starf**er, Poolside, Passion Pit, Explode Into Colors, Pure Bathing Culture, Wild Ones, Antibalas etc...