John and I go back to Vista High School, where we and four other guys formed a working rock band, the Jagged Edge, that played a couple nights a week at Camp Pendelton, and again later when John and I and four other guys formed another band, The Gringoes, that played Herb Alpert and the TJ Brass music. Of the first six, three made careers in music. I am proud of them all!
John was a rare musical talent. He had perfect pitch; and when I sat at his piano and played complex chords, he would tell me the name of the chord and the order of the notes. His playing on his Leslie organ is an unforgettable memory. And he sang, as well. On key.
I visited him in August 2015 when I was briefly back in San Diego County. I attended six Catholic masses with him as he played for their respective congregations. While I was there he held a recital in Pacific Beach for his several students as he accompanied them on the piano. At the end of the student performances, he recognized me in the audience and played and sang "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney. He could always play with such muscular power and confident authority, and he did at the six masses and that night, with more power and authority than ever! I thought it was a bit strange that he would choose that piece, especially since it was not one we played together in high school; but it was magnificent and I appreciated his gift and his gifts as a musician and as a good Christian human being.
So it was with profound sadness when another old bandmate had to tell me in 2018 that John had passed on to a dimension we cannot yet go a few months after I visited him. I miss him. I miss his music. I miss his humor. But I and the rest of the surviving members of the two bands will remember him and his keyboard style and his ability to add LIFE to the music we played together. R.I.P. John.
