My whole history begins with the fact that I was born into a musical family. My father was a musician and educator, my mother sang. My father taught music and rehearsed his band in our house on Saturdays, people like Red Tyler and Clarence Ford, Wardell Quezergue, a lot of those cats came out of our living room. As a boy I would watch 35 musicians patting their feet and playing the Big Band music my father was doing. It was exciting to me. So I tend to view NOCCA as my living room.