At this gathering of friends, I tell stories from “Adventures of an American Composer.” Here I recall meeting famous jazz drummers Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa at age 14 by knocking on their doors with portraits I’d drawn of them. But after sneaking into the Panther Room in Chicago to meet Krupa, I was escorted outside by security, and couldn’t hold back my tears.

I was playing drums in my own swing band in small-town Brookfield, Ill., in the 1940s, when a fan approached me after a gig — and said I should hear a new kind of jazz. A few days later, we donned zoot suits and ventured out to Chicago's Pershing Ballroom, where the musicians on stage included Charlie Parker, Kenny Dorham and Max Roach. I tell this story from “Adventures of an American Composer” at a congenial gathering of friends.

In 1951, I was a fervent jazz drummer with little respect for my classical music studies at the University of Illinois — until my percussion teacher, Paul Price, encouraged me to try writing my own piece of music. At that moment it was like a window opened and a creative light came shining in. From then on, I knew I was a composer. I tell the story from “Adventures of an American Composer” at a gathering of friends in Toronto.