AT HOME WITH... is a monthly Lifestyle feature which takes readers into the minds of local personalities. This month, musical great Ghandi Burgess took The Royal Gazette on a journey through the golden era of jazz on "the Rock''.

*** Writing a feature about a living legend like Vernon (Ghandi) Burgess is like trying to fit the ocean into your swimming pool.

Everyone who knows Ghandi has a favourite story about him -- and to catalogue the richness of his legacy as one of the greatest musicians Bermuda has ever produced requires a book instead of a newspaper article.

So rather than attempting to document the totality of his fabulous 73 years -- his birthday was a week ago today -- I decided to follow Ghandi's cue when he began our interview by stating: "I'm doing what musicians always say when you ask them for a tune they can play, but are not really sure of -- I'm playing it by ear.'' Ghandi claims he has been the victim of great jealousy during his life -- but as we talked in the lobby of the Southampton Princess, it was evident he is also the recipient of great love from his fellow Bermudians.

MUSICAL GIANT Several passersby and hotel workers stopped to get a word in and quietly acknowledge the aging musical giant when I met Ghandi at the Princess -- the place where he spent his best years as a musician.

But Ghandi is not surprised to hear that as a 24-year-old youngster, I'm more familiar with his name than the sound of his music.

And he stated: "I don't expect to be known by people in the past two decades because when you begin to get up in age, people haven't been exposed to me.'' "But I'm still the sort of name that pops out of the crowd all the time... Not in all modesty, this is a fact of life, that you're looking at a musician,'' he said with a broad smile.

Ghandi, like his mother before him, grew up surrounded by music, and his musical family helped develop him as much as his biological family.

He first began playing when he was only seven-years-old -- but despite his innate talent, the rigours of becoming a skilled musician required a great deal of work and dedication.

"It's always been music, and it's a life that calls for a lot of sacrifices,'' he noted.

"I had a family of 15 children with two marriages -- and I've tried to get all the children into music, but to no avail. After a while you stop pushing because you can't force what you do on somebody else.

"My biological father, named Edward Burgess, died when I was four-years-old.

He was an interesting man, one of the first boat pilots in Bermuda.

"I didn't know much about him... my mother was from England, part English and Spanish, and she was left alone with the five boys and one daughter.

"My mother has always been my backbone -- her father was a big bandmaster in England and she's always had music around her, so I guess it was easy for her to push me.'' FATHER-FIGURE Despite the loss of his biological father at an early age, Ghandi was fortunate enough to have been taken under Mark Williams' wing -- a great musician in his own right and a father-figure for Ghandi.

"My mother got in with Mark Williams and that was great for me -- he was the only father that I knew,'' he noted.

"Mark Williams was definitely a force in music... he was so talented, he was a good writer, good arranger, and the first Bermudian musical director in a local hotel. If you could take his abuse, you'd turn out to be something.

"When he realised I was moving so fast -- and he was limited on the trumpet -- he arranged for me to go to Prospect... In those days you always had the British Army Band here.

"I had ears bigger than my head. Guys were coming in from South America -- really good jazz players -- and once I heard anything they played, I could play it the next day. I had a very intense ability to capture this stuff,'' he said.

"Mark arranged for me to study with a man named Spear, and all these guys I studied with were so excited about me. One English guy who I studied with was so amazed about how I played jazz that he would come and listen to me any time I played with Mark.

"Spear would take up the phone and get me to play to whomever was listening.

That was quite complementary with me being just a little kid -- but I knew the difference, I knew I had to get a good foundation.'' "When I got to be 11-years-old, I started playing with Al Davis, who was another musical father of mine. He was Bermuda's number one tenor sax player, he could arrange and knew theory and when you talked to him, it wasn't no jive.

"I was called Puffy Burgess back then because I was as big around as I was tall. I was a very sinful person all my life, and my sin was that I was a glutton. I love food and I have an insatiable appetite that was passed on by all of the well-meaning people when I was Puffy.'' "But I look back on that and think about Davis taking me into the band... there were people who wouldn't have done that: I was this big, ungainly kid, but he thought the world of me -- he was another one who couldn't stop bragging about me, so I worked with him until I was 13 and then went off to New York School of Music.

"They had a staff of teachers from all over... I remember this headman saying to my mother `oh Mrs. Burgess, your son has the tone of a violin!'. I was noted for my tone -- that's the first thing people noted about me.'' After studying at the New York School of Music and working on cruise ships for several years, Ghandi returned to Bermuda.

EMPIRE ROOM He was offered musical directorship at Sonesta, Club Med (formerly Holiday Inn) and Southampton Princess -- which he called "the big prize''.

He decided to go with the Princess -- and arranging shows for the infamous Empire Room was, according to Ghandi, "the greatest job in the world''.

"The Empire Room was a gorgeous room until they turned it around and made it into a convention room,'' he recalled.

"I had a $347-a-day suite at the Southampton Princess with all the food free, maid service, laundry service -- I lived there for about 12 years and lived better than the guests who go there every day.

"You're looking at a guy here, honey, and this is fact: I've played more international shows than anybody in the world.

"When I started at the Princess, I was sent to the States to select musicians... there was no way you could ignore any Bermudian musicians if they were out there.'' Ghandi noted that the Bermudian musicians during that golden era were multi-talented, and had learned to double on flute, clarinets, and members of the saxophone family even if it wasn't the instrument they were most familiar with.

"(The Bermudian musicians) had to be versatile, they were paid to be versatile, and so with (foreign musicians), the onus was completely on them,'' he said.

"We all in Bermuda try not to tread on any toes -- the Island is narrow and the minds go with it -- but the simple truth is that over a period of years, there have been very, very few musicians.

"That gets confused when you see ads where they say "the musicians'' and they're guys who can't read one bar of music.'' "Back then, you had to have the show down the afternoon when (the foreign act) arrived -- and you can draw from that the importance of being a musician.

"They'd sometimes walk off the plane late, and I'd have the boys standing by and we had to jump into it right away.'' VERSATILE MUSICIANS "It had to be ready before you left the room that afternoon because it had to be presented at ten o'clock that night at the show.

"But we'd do everything to keep the act happy, and many of them would come back four, five, or six times.'' As a member of a dying class of "true musicians'', Ghandi and his counterparts not only read music and played different instruments, but sang as well -- with a view to be as knowledgeable and versatile as possible.

"Musicians generally don't think of themselves as singers, although I've been called Bermuda's Mr. Arthur Prysock. He's a dear friend of mine, and I've played for Arthur many times at the Forty Thieves (where Ghandi was musical director for ten years) and the Southampton Princess,'' said Ghandi.

"Whenever he came here, I always went out and secured Lance Hayward because Lance is like myself and a handful of others, who had such a vast experience that we pretty much know all the tunes that have been current for the past 50 years or so.

"That makes it very easy for a guy like Arthur because all he does is start singing -- no talk about keys or anything like that. And because Lance is so great with his ears, the minute he starts, bam! and they're gone. Arthur really appreciated that.

"Playing with Lance was like a dream come true -- he was so revered -- and he loved to play with me because I had the ability to get a French horn sound on the trumpet.'' Ghandi Burgess tells of the golden era of jazz on `the Rock' So with numbers like Laura, he would go through the sky. Lance, no doubt, was the greatest.'' The Performing Arts Humanitarian Award, presented to Ghandi by Zintech International and Master Rhythm Production during a New Year's celebration, was the most recent award in a slew honouring his talent.

David Tucker, of Zintech International, said Ghandi deserved the award both for his talent and his willingness to help up-and-coming musicians.

"Ghandi's one of the most highly-respected entertainers here -- he's put Bermuda on the map, he has a real love for playing the trumpet and has put in a lot of dedicated years.'' he said.

"He's got such a big heart.. . he's doing a lot to help young musicians,'' he added.

Despite his versatility -- he's been playing the trombone for the past 16 years -- Ghandi will always be best known for his trumpet-playing abilities.

But according to Ghandi, the trumpet has been more than an musical instrument -- it has also been a hard taskmaster.

"The trumpet -- there's a little saying about that when people teach you the trumpet. It's like being a soldier in the army and the Sgt. Major says, `you'll break your mother's heart, but you won't break mine','' he chuckled.

"The trumpet is a heart-breaking instrument. Even over a period of 30 years, there's hardly any trumpet players around because it's a quite a wearisome instrument.

"It's mainly the physical thing -- the mouthpiece is small. You encounter the same thing with the French horn or the oboe.

"They used to have a saying years ago -- I dunno whether it was true or not -- that when you studied the oboe, you died very young if you weren't taught correctly. It's such a small reed and the pressure you have to use -- it's not like a free-flowing instrument like a flute.

"Even today, whenever I get into serious practice I have a book called `100 Etudes For Trumpet' -- that's a 100 specialised studies which would take you about seven or eight hours to get through them, even at the speed I would play them.

"That's like my little Bible of music. Each study is a special study and you can't be a complete technician without it.'' Despite his success in the musical arena, Ghandi's proudest moment was surprisingly not related to his music career -- but rather when the PLP came into power.

Ghandi said during his musical heyday, he considered himself as a sort of "self-appointed representative of musicians''.

And the former PLP candidate said his most gratifying moment was the November 9 election victory, because it marked a level of deep satisfaction for Ghandi as a whole human being, not just Ghandi the musician.

"(During the Empire days) we guys had a lot of fun on the surface, but here we are now finally getting what we want -- a beautiful sense of being, and you can't top that,'' he noted.

"And if I had to leave (the Earth) today, I really wouldn't have anything to grumble about -- I've led a pretty good life.''