![]() That's how my career started and two years later I was hired by Miles Davis. I moved to New York just before my 21st birthday. I wanted to be a jazz musician even though I had already done two years of engineering. Mom reluctantly said yes after a call from trumpeter Donald Byrd. I told them I loved the idea but they had to ask my mother. I got a weekend gig out of town and was noticed by a band who asked me to be their piano player. I had a summer job working at a post office in Chicago after I graduated from college. It was only once I hit my later teenage years that the switch clicked. Fortunately I could play the piano and the girls liked that. I noticed girls in elementary school but I didn't have a girlfriend. She was killed in a plane crash in 1985 at 41. Her songs were recorded by artists such as Booker T and the MGs, Dianne Reeves, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Jean taught herself how to play the guitar and wrote lyrics. We came from a poor family but when Mom got a job as a secretary at the University of Chicago, she was able to get my sister a discount to attend the highly regarded Lab Schools in Hyde Park. When she started school she already knew how to add, subtract and divide. When she was three years old, she would ask my brother, Wayman jnr, and me what we had learnt in school. It was wise on his part, but Mom also gave good advice. When I would ask Dad certain things, he would say, "Go ask your mother." He put her at the centre of the decision-making because it was like putting oil on a wheel to keep the family running smoothly. My dad thought Mum was highly strung but she was actually bipolar. She didn't push us to be anything we didn't want to be. Mom was always supportive of her three children – of whom I am the eldest – particularly when it came to us getting a good education. ![]()
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