represented everything we had grown to love
along with the other dance halls. People in Cleveland were
musically. As kids, my sisters Gayle, Ginger and I
very supportive of their bands and they loved this group.
danced so much in front of the mirror in the living
Tom turned me onto John Coltrane by playing me “A Love
room to that music that we wore out the carpet,
Supreme”. The spirit of the music kidnapped me! That I
and my mother swore she would not replace it
know is a scene that has been repeated countless times before
until we were over posing, period!
me and is still happening today.
I started playing in bands when I was 12
I have to say, my parents were pretty good-natured about
years old, when a teenager around 15 years old
the whole thing. I can recall sitting down to eat with the
named Rich Pfhall would pass by my home as he
family and playing some Coltrane in the family room, and
walked to his place. One day he came to the door,
musically it was getting a bit intense – my dad looked at me
found me and said he was putting a band together,
and smiled and said, “hey do you think you have anything
and he wanted me to play drums. We had a group,
that might go with Kibbee?”
and with the help of our parents we rented out the
local Knights of Columbus hall and packed the
place every gig. We played the simplest of pop
tunes – Motown was in, Rock & Roll was new,
doo-wop was on the way out. I passed through all
of that, then onto the English invasion and
Hendrix, and then into American horn pop bands
like Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears and the
Electric Flag. All of those groups had members
who were committed jazz musicians moonlighting
in pop bands.
You started playing in jazz clubs when you
were still very young – alongside celebrated
figures like Herbie Hancock. What inspired
you to become a jazz musician?
Playing with Herbie happened later on with a Paul
Simon recording. But when I was 15, I got a call
from an arranger/trumpeter named Tom Baker.
He needed a sub on drums for his band called the
Sensations, who were huge in Cleveland,
performing at the Agora once or twice a week
Jamey with his parents, Geraldine and James Haddad at
his wedding on May 20th, 1989