When I was a youngster, my mother read an article claiming that learning to play a musical instrument made you smarter. After that, she took a good hard look at me and my siblings and, deciding we could all use a healthy dose of intelligence, instated a new requirement: all of her children would join the school band for a minimum of two years.

My own compulsory enlistment started out easy enough. I selected the trumpet because it seemed like a decent pick, what with it only having three valves and all, and while I wasn’t much for practicing in those early days, things started picking up for me in the fifth grade when the band director invited me to join the jazz band with the six and seventh graders, who were all much taller than me.

Despite the height differences, that invitation instilled in me the joy of playing in jazz bands--something I did non-stop for the next 26 years or so, and eventually even made a career of (so much for band making you smarter, mom). But while I loved the bands, and did stick it out for the years to come, I was kind of on the fence about continuing after my senior year of high school.

At that point, my teachers were encouraging me to study music collegiately, and my parents and friends’ parents all assumed that’s what I’d decide to do, but I wasn’t so sure. The thing was, I didn’t have some burning love for music nor did I consider myself particularly talented. Instead, playing the trumpet just felt more like something to do--an outlet. The problem was, those goddamn jazz bands had taken up so much of my life, I didn’t know what else to do.

But later that year, things took a turn. I won the lead trumpet chair in two bands that heavily swayed my feelings toward pursuing music: the Texas All-State Jazz Band and the GRAMMY band, a kind of all-national group for high schoolers sponsored by the GRAMMY Foundation.

The All-State Convention and GRAMMY Awards were back to back that winter, and there were three of us from Texas--myself, Jeremy Sinclair on trumpet and Matt Marantz on alto saxophone--who were continuing on to the GRAMMYs. We became pals that first week in San Antonio and after rehearsing and performing with a great band of all-star yokels, flew up to NYC together as a couple of rednecks.

The GRAMMY band was something else. Up to that point, I had never heard musicians my age play at such a high level--particularly as improvisors. Most of the members were from magnet schools in Manhattan or the San Francisco Bay area or my friends Jeremy and Matt from up in Dallas, and I felt a little out of my league. But as the week went on, my talents as a lead trumpeter were brought into sharp relief, and to be a serviceable member of such a high-caliber group was a gamechanger for me. I was beginning to feel like there was a place for me outside my small town on the Texas gulf.

The group rehearsed daily and played gigs around Manhattan: sets at the Jazz Standard, the Knitting Factory, and then, at the end of the week, recording a few tracks at The Hit Factory and playing the after party for the GRAMMY Awards. Sammy Nestico, a big name jazz composer from Count Basie’s band was in the audience that night, and after we played a number of his, he came up on stage and cried. I got a picture with him. Nice guy. Oh, and the bartenders got us loaded.

Speaking of which, the week was just as much about tomfoolery as it was about the music. Me and Sinclair bought a pack of cigarettes for $8 from a street cart downtown, a price that seemed outrageous compared to the $2.36 soft packs of Camel Lights I got from the Walmart gas station back home. We smoked them in our hotel bathroom, standing on the edge of the shower and blowing the smoke into the air vent. Yeah. And there was a girl in the vocal group who took a liking to me, and even though I was nervous I still got a kiss from her on the bus ride back to the airport. Before that, the organizer of the ensemble, after catching wind that I and a few others had been hanging out in her room, reamed me and told me I had shit for brains and was thinking with the wrong head.

So there ya go. A defining moment. And I came home feeling confident about the decision to move forward with music. But in reality, I think I would have gone through with it anyways. It felt like the decision had been made for me, and as I already mentioned, I didn’t know what else to do.