Katie Cavera’s Meandering Major

Jazz Travels writer Bill Hoffman turns over his column to Katie Cavera this month: Spend two minutes (or less) with Katie Cavera and you’ll know why she’s called the California Sunshine Girl. I met Katie for the first time at the San Diego Jazz Festival last November. I may have seen her once or twice before, but we live 3,000 miles apart, so any meetings or sightings are bound to be few and far between—unfortunately for me. I sent Katie a list of questions. One in particular intrigued her, and it became the basis for this article: Did you major in music in college? Here’s her answer. Right now I have a lot of friends with kids who are starting college, and I’ve also started working with a relatively new band at Disney that includes a few recent college graduates. So I’ve been reflecting on that time in my life and how it shaped the person I am today. By the time I finished high school, I had acquired modest piano skills. I had started learning Dixieland banjo. And I had picked up the trombone so I could play with my high school marching band, which was the only music program my very small Catholic high school had to offer. I loved musicals and had ideas of someday composing shows for Broadway. On my own, I dabbled in composing and I w