Accomplished Jersey City jazz drummer Don Carter remembers his early days - back in elementary school - beating on his desk with his hands standing in as drumsticks. His teacher repeatedly asked him what he was doing, and he simply explained he had found the rhythm.
He didn't pick up the sticks for real until he was a teenager.
"Jazz has inspiration and good challenges," he explains today, in between performances at area venues. "Jazz itself can go from (one) extreme to the other, has many spectrums. You never know what you are going to get because it contains all types of music, like classical and rock. It is composed of everything, which makes it different and special."
A Harlem native who grew up listening to records and to his sisters, who were gospel singers in their church choir, Carter moved to Jersey City at the age of 14 to join his father, who worked at a local paper mill. Carter's family was hoping to find him a better community in which to live and a better life.
He later enrolled in St. Peter's College, where he received an associate's degree in public policy as well as a bachelor's degree in education. His minor, of course, was music and while in school he worked as an adjunct professor teaching jazz history.
Carter went on to receive a master's in education and an online Ph.D. in psychology.
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