Career and Beyond
Following graduate school in 1974, I started a professorial and administrative career at Cornell University. During my years at Cornell, I played at clubs and for parties and events,. This photo from 1981, when I was a visiting professor at Stanford University, was at St. Michael’s Alley, a restaurant, gallery, and great gathering place in Palo Alto.
That same year I heard about a very creative jazz pianist who was also a marvelous teacher – Art Lande. He was part of a summer jazz program at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Art was one of the best teachers of any kind that I knew of and his playing was inspirational. He emphasized integration of performance with the moment and the instrument. It was an inspiring experience, one that influences me to this day.
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I am blessed with two wonderful sons, Scott and Kevin, who are talented in so many ways. Each of them got involved in music through their elementary school programs, Scott on saxophone and Kevin on violin. Scott is heard here playing in fourth and fifth grade recitals (with his teacher Flo Flummerfelt the flautist) along with a duet we did at one of them. As good as he was, he eventually chose pursuits other than music.
As a teenager, Kevin switched to guitar and we occasionally jam together as shown in this photo at home.
In the 1990s I joined a group in Ithaca, New York called the “Greenhouse Effect.” I have posted in the Playlist section several tunes from performances we did on the local public broadcasting station as well as at other events. For these recordings the group consisted of myself, Cornell Professor of English Rick Bogel on trombone, Professor of Music at Ithaca College Frank Campos on trumpet, John Wiser on bass and Tom Killian on drums.
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Around the year 2000, I started to get serious about playing solo, having always played in a band and never having to think much about managing melody, harmony, rhythm and arrangement simultaneously. This photo was taken at the A.D. White House, Cornell’s first presidential residence, where I played for a 75th birthday party for the father of the actor/comedian Chevy Chase and his sister, Cynthia Chase, who was a professor of English at Cornell. Chevy was a talented and self-taught pianist and sat in for a few tunes of his own. This recording of me playing Pensativa, one of Clare Fischer's most notable compositions, was from that event.
Moving to Santa Barbara in 2001 to be Dean at Fielding Graduate University opened up new musical ventures. My wife, Carol Wilburn, had a long career as an arts administrator, most notably at the Kentucky Center for the Arts in Louisville, KY and at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts in Ithaca, NY. In Santa Barbara she put her background to use in support of local arts organizations, and served on the boards of the Ensemble Theatre and the Granada Theatre (Santa Barbara Center for the Performing Arts).
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Through Carol’s local networks, I had the opportunity to play for various social and fund-raising events such as this one at the Ensemble Theatre.
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Occasionally I would rub shoulders with VIPs such as Nancy Pelosi and Valerie Plame (as close as I would get to the CIA).
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One very memorable musical moment was on the Fourth of July 2006 when I conducted the Santa Barbara Symphony in The Stars and Stripes Forever at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Garden. I earned this “privilege” as a result of inadvertently being the highest bidder at an Symphony “martini fundraiser” (I had one too many!). Of course, they really didn’t need me to conduct this standard holiday song but it was an occasion to dress up and have fun. I gained new respect for the physical demands of waving one’s arms around while “conducting.”
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You can watch a video of this fun event in the Playlist section.
I have played for a number of events at Santa Barbara's Granada Theatre. In the Playlist section you can watch a short video from 2019 where I was asked to play a selection of standards.
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