When I was young, I was always drawn towards music. Anything with a beat would do. I started to teach myself how to play the piano when I was six, then eventually started formal lessons. Becoming a more independent musician, I pushed myself towards songwriting, instead of just playing classical. I picked up the saxophone when I was in the fifth grade, and it came unbelievably natural to me. I just played in the school bands until high school, where I began to play outside of school with a few other rather motivated players. I played the guitar fairly seriously all throughout junior high, but fell out of it when I began to play the saxophone more. My saxophone styling is a bit different than my piano playing in that I play mainly jazz and funk on the sax, and most of my piano writings are more simplified. I didn't really start singing until late junior high school, where I was writing lyrics and singing them over simple guitar chord patterns, but stopped my songwriting for most of high school. I focused on the jazz sax playing I had become decent with, and kind of forgot about the piano as well there for a while. Now, I write more of the singer songwriter type music on the piano, and still play the saxophone with anyone who wants to play. In the past I've played with, The Heather Thornton Band, Julie Turner Ruskin, The Ruskin Quartet, KCKCC Big Band/Combo, Jem Razz, Tom DeMasters, The ONW Big Band/Combo, The IAJE National Community College All Stars Big Band, Dennis Winslett, The PVCC Big Band, Rick Yord, Wycliffe Gordon, Ruben Alvarez, Jim Mair, Tim Whitmer, Tony Smith. Currently the groups I play with include; The Salty Dawg's Cold Sweat , The Night Owls, and The Heather Thornton Band. Jeramy Johnston is a Good friend of mine. We arranged this version of "Carol of the Bells" for our Christmas album in 2006. To hear more from Jeramy, visit his myspace, which is on my top friends list. Enjoy.
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