About

Meet Jerry

There was always music around the house when I was growing up. My dad was a jazz trombone player, in the style of Jack Teagarden. My mom played piano, and my older brothers played trombone and the tuba.

After high school, I went to Indiana University and was fortunate to have studied with the legendary Mr. William Adam. Those years were the foundation of everything I know about trumpet and life itself. Mr. Adam is, without a doubt, THE finest person I have ever met.

Halfway through my junior year I met Larry Hall, a great player who became my life-long best friend. He had already graduated and asked if I was interested in going to Hawaii to play in the shows with him. So I left on my 21st birthday to go to Hawaii.

Seawind

We formed Seawind, a band which included Larry Hall, Larry Williams, Kim Hutchcroft, all from Indiana, all who had come over from LA to Hawaii to play shows. Rounding out the band were Ken Wild, a bassist living in Hawaii, and Bob Wilson, a drummer who had been in the service, and Gary Grant who came to Hawaii a few months later to play the shows in Honolulu.

Harvey Mason took interest in the group and talked us into moving back to LA, here he produced our first two albums. Seawind was a training ground for me as a player and also as an arranger, which I had never done. With Seawind, it was an open book and anything was possible, so it gave all of us an opportunity to experiment and find out what worked and what didn't.

Seawind is still one of the best musical experiences of my life.

After Seawind

One day a transcendental phone call from Quincy Jones changed my life...

There were a lot of musicians who came to hear Seawind play at the Baked Potato, and the horn section got some notoriety in the underground musical circles.

One day Quincy Jones, who finds out about the newest talent before anyone else, called me asking if I were interested in arranging one of his songs for an album. WHAT?? Are you kidding me?? Of course!!

From that session on I was a member of Quincy's musical family. You just never know when your moment might come, so be ready.