A musician once described by Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie as ‘the best ever, including me’ is performing in Bermuda on Friday.World renowned trumpeter Jon Faddis will appear with the Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra of New York at the Fairmont Southampton as part of the Bermuda Festival, where he will not only display his skills with the instrument but also deliver a message of hope to the Island’s young musicians.In a series of music master classes to be held in conjunction with the festival, Mr Faddis will let Bermuda’s aspiring stars of the future that they can achieve their dreams if they display the same passion and determination he did in his youth.“The message I hope to bring to the young musicians is hope and inspiration and the message that they can do it if they really really want to,” he said. “It takes a lot of hard work, and a lot of practice even when you don’t want to practice, but it can be done.”For Mr Faddis, who chose the trumpet at his instrument at the age of seven after seeing Louis Armstrong playing on the Ed Sullivan Show, a chance meeting in a coffee shop helped to launch his musical career.“When I was 17, my trumpet teacher was walking down the street one day and saw Lionel Hampton in a coffee shop in San Francisco,” said Mr Faddis. “She told him ‘I have a trumpet player you have to hear’.”Lionel Hampton and his jazz band were world-famous. Mr Hampton played with all the great jazz musicians of his time, and even received a Papal Medal from Pope Paul VI in 1968. Mr Faddis successfully auditioned with Mr Hampton’s band on July 6, 1971, ironically, the day that Armstrong died.“That (playing with Lionel Hampton) got me to New York and that is when I started to meet a lot of musicians I had been admiring,” he said. “I started playing with them and establishing myself.”One of his early gigs with Mr Hampton was playing in Bermuda with pianist Roland Hanna who wrote the song ‘Seasons’ for jazz-great Sarah Vaughan. Early on, Mr Faddis gained a reputation for his ability to closely mirror the sound of another jazz legend, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, one of his mentors. Mr Faddis was once famously described by Mr Gillespie as “ … the best ever, including me!”He first met Mr Gillespie when he was 12-years-old at a club in San Francisco, but he was too nervous to say anything to his hero. He got another chance at 15, when his mother took him to the Monterey Jazz Festival.“At the festival I saw him and I ran over to him,” said Mr Faddis. “My mother went and got my Dizzy records which we had brought along for him to sign. There were about 50 records. He sat and autographed them and a couple of weeks later I met him playing in another club. No minors were allowed, but he said ‘come on in and play’, and that was my first opportunity to play with him. That was when I knew I wanted to be a musician.”During his long career, Mr Faddis has produced solo albums such as ‘Legacy’, ‘Into The Faddisphere’ and ‘Hornucopia’. Among other things, he was director and main trumpet soloist of the Dizzy Gillespie 70th Birthday Big Band and Dizzy’s United Nation Orchestra from 1992 to 2002.His current band, JFJONY headlined The Kennedy Center’s New Year’s Eve performance in December 2010 and performed at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Performing Arts Center in Westchester, New York, the Newport Jazz Festival and other venues. In 2006, JFJONY released their album ‘Teranga’. He also appeared in the movie ‘Blues Brothers 2000’, playing the trumpet with The Louisiana Gator Boys.He is also a noted educator and has taught for over ten years at The Conservatory of Music at Purchase College-SUNY, in Westchester, New York. Remaining true to the tradition of honouring mentors, he also leads master classes, clinics and workshops around the world. He will often will bring promising students along to his gigs and allow the students to sit in.“My philosophy is to be in touch with ones feelings and be in touch with music,” he said.For more information see his website at jonfaddis.netMr Faddis will be performing on Friday at 8.30pm in the Mid-Ocean Amphitheatre at the Fairmont Southampton Princess. Tickets are $25 for students and $65 for adults. See www.bdatix.bm or www.bermudafestival.org.