70s

I thought about doing this autobiography thing chronologically, starting when I was about three years old and remembering the first records I listened to, but I decided to give up that idea and begin instead with an overview of my life in the 1970s. That was an incredible decade for me though it was by no means my most profitable time in purely financial terms. It covered virtually my entire recording career, my closest brushes with the fame I had pursued since the age of about seven, my near-PhD in English Education, and the beginning of the Jack Kramer Orchestra, which was to become my primary source of income from the late '70's through the first decade of the 2000s.

I had decided in mid-1968 that the '68-'69 school year would be my last as an English teacher at Evanston Township High School (more about that experience in later entries). I decided that it was time to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a world-famous trumpet player, the Harry James of the second half of the twentieth century. Besides, since I was about to turn twenty-six, the threat of the draft and Viet Nam would conveniently go away, so I wouldn't have to teach anymore to avoid that whole disgusting mess. Luckily for me, Blood Sweat and Tears appeared on the scene right about then, and the idea of a trumpet player in a rock/pop band suddenly looked like a realistic possibility. So I made my stardom plans, all the while figuring out ways to achieve my goals even though I was, by that time, well aware of my very significant weaknesses as a trumpet player. And there were many. I could never play high notes. I had lousy endurance. I was a terrible improviser. In general, I was not a very creative writer or musician. But there were ways, I insisted to myself, to get around all those roadblocks. And I almost did it in the 1970s.