Faculty of Music posts #TBT article re UofTJazz

The Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and have started posting articles about the Faculty’s history. Today this article concerning the beginning of the Jazz Performance Degree Program in 1991 was published and brought back many memories. I was hired that year to design a new jazz curriculum, hire faculty and became Director of Jazz Studies. For many years prior to the formal jazz degree program starting, Phil Nimmons had been teaching jazz courses. When I was hired in 1991 we kind of moved in together in an office we shared for many years. Maybe 1991-2008. Thankfully, this shared office arrangement worked well, or maybe I should beautifully. We knew each other for years before that, but in’91 our relationship blossomed into one of the great friendships of my life. Phil and Noreen Nimmons and their family treated me and Trish Colter (my wife) like family. There were many great events and adventures (golf trips and other holidays) with the Nimmonses over the years. I am so grateful to have worked with Phil all those years. We are 25 years apart in age, but we never seemed to be aware of that. Conversations would often start with phrases like, “People our age…”. The part time faculty we had over the years was tremendous. All were working A-list jazz musicians with a special knack for teaching along side us. And the students who attended while I was there were inspiring and exciting to be around (most of the time :)) Many of them now teach at the Faculty and so many went on to do great things in music in Canada, the USA and elsewhere. /PR