ABSTRACT
Lenny Pickett, born April 10, 1954, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, grew up in Berkeley, California. Pickett started playing clarinet at age nine, eventually moving to saxophone by age thirteen. He eventually befriended avant-garde saxophonist Bert Wilson and began his early immersion into the Bay Area music scene. When he was seven years old and growing up in Berkeley, California, there was a TV show hosted by Art Linkletter. The show's theme song was played on a clarinet and he really liked that sound. It was not so much about what types of music attracted Lenny Pickett, it was more about what types of music he was exposed to. His mother had a real big interest in jazz and rhythm and blues. She lived a sort of Bohemian existence and that music was the soundtrack of her life.
