A native of St. Louis, Jim remembers a small scene there and coming to jazz music later than most.
"I remember seeing that Dizzy video on PBS from 1966. It had Kenny Baron, James Moody and Chris White on bass. I think I was 17 or 18 years old at the time. But it got me in the right spot. When I started playing, my main influences were two guys I lived with. One was the saxophone player Chris Cheek and the other was bassist Steve Kirby. We had a loft in the section of town called Soulard. It's right up next to the Mississippi and the Budweiser brewery is there as well. We had an agreement that whoever played the first note of the day, got the apartment for that day to practice!"