Giving Back : ‘I Don’t Just Teach Music . . .’

I don’t just teach music. I teach life.

I tell the kids, “my story is no different from yours.” Yes, I didn’t have a father who was there for me and my mother was on the county, though she did the best she could for the seven of us. No, I couldn’t afford drums, but I decided I could be the one to change that and achieve my dream. There’s no perfect situation. It’s your responsibility to make something of yourselves.

There were a number of people who helped me. I had two of the best school band directors in the city. One, Donald Dustin, took me to my first jazz festival. I was just beginning to play drums. That exposure made me realize that was exactly what I wanted to do.

I started working with youth a year after I got out of college, which I attended on a full scholarship. That’s why today with kids I’m so pushy about their grades. The drum companies I was endorsing started sending me around doing clinics. The last thing I wanted to be was a teacher. I wanted to be a player. Later on I felt a need to make it clearer to young folks, especially those socio-economically deficited, how they could achieve their goals.

Your ticket out of here, I tell them, are these two things, these drumsticks. These two things will take you all over the world, staying in first-class hotels, getting paid. All you have to do is make them do what they’re supposed to do. But I can’t make you a professional if you don’t do the work.

Young people having contact with professionals is very important. Without that you have no gauge of the level of proficiency required and the steps you have to take to develop.

The major influences on my life, as professional musicians, were Miles Davis, Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock. The affect they had on me in terms of standards of perfection, of proficiency, presentation, on striving to grow--those were the gauges I used in my development.

One thing I’ve done through programs like the Jazz in Schools or Playboy jazz outreach is teach kids the role jazz has played in the history and culture of the country. It’s important for people to understand that music correlates with every time period. Jazz ties directly with minorities, blacks and Latins and the way they changed the political and economic structure of this country. You can’t teach music without teaching history.

I realize as a teacher, a mentor or as an influence the success rate is not going to be in the numbers you’d hope for. What hurts is giving the opportunity, giving the support and then them not taking advantage of it.

But if you touch one, reach one and see that person mature into a great human being, whether playing great music or not, that is the greatest gratification I could have. There’s a student at Locke, all he needed was someone to say, “You could do it,” and to give him an idea what was needed. I’ve taken a special interest in him, and one of the drum companies I endorse is donating him some drums. And I’ll pay for him to go to a percussion camp in Illinois where I teach in the summer, if his parents will permit it. He deserves it. He’s worked hard. I feel like this could change his life.

I have another guy, similar to this kid, except he’s graduating this year and has a full scholarship to college. When I met this kid it was the same old story, not being motivated, not having direction, just existing. I spent three years working with this child. Now I see the fruit of his dreams come to life. It’s a high for me, a real high.