(Mark Kendall ask him if he has a title – noticed I scratched the first para, we don’t need the biographical information in that para nor the birth details.

My Parents settled in Los Angeles when I was a baby. My Father was a Jazz trumpet player and my Mother sang but my they both had day jobs to make ends meet. My dad was a schooled musician who could read music and also play piano. He had perfect pitch & a great sense of rhythm. Everyone on my Mother’s side could sing and play piano.

They used to have after hours jams in Los Angeles that were like a who’s who of musicians that would show up. My Dad jammed with a lot of upper echelon great musicians. My Mother would sing old jazz standards with the piano players during intermissions. She told me that waitresses had cross top bennies on their drink trays! I suppose it helped people stay awake because they jammed all night.

My grandfather on my dad’s side was Walter Kendall Sr., and was a world class piano player who mastered a ragtime type style. I called him Papa. He played incredibly difficult bass lines with his left hand while he banged away with his right hand! My dad learned a lot from him about music theory.

My parents have always been my heroes who supported everything I did in life apart from getting in trouble! Just before turning 4 years old my parents bought a house inland in West Covina California, which is a suburb of Los Angeles about 40 miles outside of the city.

I loved our new house because there were neighbor kids to play with which I only had at a minimum in L.A.

I discovered music at age 5. My parents always had music going in the house & I used to sit next to their record player & listen to their records, & even sing along! Most of it was jazz but I remember there was one song called “The Girl From Ipanema” that I loved. I learned that music can create emotion. It made me feel so good to listen to that song, so I started singing with it, and playing it over and over again. I was getting pictures in my mind listening to it. I remember my mom saying to my dad, he sings in key, meaning me!