I was born in Miami, Florida. My dad fooled around with the guitar and I guess I was about 7 when he got me one of my own. I didn't have a teacher or any friends who played guitar so I was never that serious about music until I was around 15. After high school I worked crappy jobs for a while then decided it was time to get serious. I moved to Bennington, Vermont (where my mom lived) and worked at a factory trying to get enough money to go to Berklee and trying to transcribe Jim Hall, Coltrane and Joe Pass. I wasn't able to save enough which is unfortunate because my classmates at the time would have been John Scofield, Mike Stern, Bill Frisell… So, I headed back to Florida and enrolled, provisionally, in Florida State where the classical guitar teacher was Bruce Holzman - a really great teacher and player. There were some amazing classical guitarists there at the time and I worked really hard trying to learn jazz on my own (mostly transcribing Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, etc) and trying to practice both classical and jazz. I think my record for a practice day was 14 hours. It was quantity, not quality. I spent 4 years there and then was accepted at the University of North Texas in Denton. That was great. I made some wonderful friends there, learned a lot, got to study with Jack Petersen, did a lot of jam sessions, met my future wife. In 1987 I moved to New York City and things got interesting. Played with some musicians I never dreamed I'd play with, met some lifelong friends, bought a house in Brooklyn, learned a whole lot.

I guess it was about 1989 or 1990 when I ran into a friend from North Texas who had been living in Los Angeles and had just moved to New York, the great pianist Michael Cain. I was checking out the John Scofield Trio at a now defunct jazz club (Sweet Basil). Sco was playing with Johnny Vidocovitch and Anthony Cox and Mike was friends with Anthony. Mike was living in Brooklyn, like me, and we started getting together and playing. Mike is an amazing composer and pianist and he has wonderful concepts. A friend of his (and now mine) from Los Angeles, Yoshio Maki, was a producer and had hooked Mike up with a recording for Candid Records. The band was Mike on piano, me on guitar and Glen Velez on hand drums. A beautiful concept. We did Mikes recording (Strange Omen) in one night at Hit Factory. I think we started about 7pm, direct to 2-track. About midnight we were almost done and had some incredible takes. Mike was listening to the playback and said "What's that warbling sound?" Turns out the tape machine was not aligned and we had to try and find another 2-track and start all over. We started again about 3am and finished at 7 in the morning but the takes weren't as strong. I still love that recording, though, and love Mikes writing and playing.

Yoshio approached me about doing a recording for a label he was starting, Moo Records, and I recorded my debut CD (Forget Everything) around 1994. I wanted MIke for sure and he was playing piano with Jack DeJohnettes Special Edition and I was incredibly lucky to have Jack agree to play on the CD as well. The rest of the band were some amazing musicians I knew from North Texas, Tony Scherr (bass) and Dave Pietro (saxophone). I'm not all that happy with my playing on the recording but the rest of the band sounds great.

I did my next recording (Likely Story) in Los Angeles at Mad Hatter with Peter Erskine, the late Dave Carpenter, Otmaro Ruiz and Dave Pietro. My next was in New York at Systems 2 (Fragment) with Adam Kolker, Satoshi Takeshi and John Hebert. My next (8 x 5) was recorded at Skyline with Mark and Alan Ferber, Adam Kolker and Mike McGuirk. For a fuller list of some of my recordings please visit the Discography page. I continue to record on a regular basis. I was also lucky enough to be able to record with Dave Holland, Kenny Werner, Bill Stewart and some other great musicians.

I started teaching at Berklee in 1993 and still do. Then, in 2006, I got married and moved to Austin, TX. Now I divide my time between Austin, Boston and New York. I've made some great friends in Austin and, except for the travel, it's a great life.