Well when I got to high school, I continued my musical quest and started playing in the High School Jazz Band at Somerville High. It was a good group and we participated in various concerts and competitions. I began meeting more musicians and I played in various bands through high school with some of my buddies, Vinny Scali, Mike Mangini, Louis Cabral, Mike Clark, Bob Chiarelli and many others. We played school talent shows and outdoor concerts and things. I joined my first real professional working band with Louis Cabral and his brothers in the band "Squeeze". We played most weekends in the Portuguese circuit and I made about $50 per gig which was awesome for me as a high school kid in the 70's. I was playing as much as I could in school concerts, summer dance groups, weekend gigs and jam sessions. While I was still in High School I got another professional gig with the band "Stage" and we were the house band for a popular function facility and we were doing 1-4 gigs per weekend.

  Well I went on to gain some cool accolades with achieving the guitar chair in both the Massachusetts District and All-state Jazz Big bands in both 1979-80. I also went on to win the Louis Armstrong Jazz award in 1980. Something changed for me those last couple of years in High School as I began listening to more Jazz/Rock fusion artists, Progressive Rock groups and even Avant Gar-de, like Jeff Beck (both the "Wired" and "Blow by Blow" records blew my mind) Weather Report (I saw them 3 times live with Jaco Pastorius on bass, UNBELIEVABLE-!! ), Gentle Giant, Yes, Fred Frith and others. I also began studying with a Berklee College of Music professor named Garrison Fewell and I felt my musical mind beginning to open up. Well, after barely graduating from High School (My grades were not that good due to too much music and other things) I enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, got excepted, paid my orientation fee and was ready to go.