From 'Twinkle, Twinkle' to gig playing with stars at Grammys

JP teen Jake Sherman has a ticket to LA next month.

One high school musician is a step closer to the Grammy Awards - or at least the ceremonies.

Jake Sherman, a Jamaica Plain resident attending Boston Latin School, secured this year's spot as the piano player for the prestigious Gibson/Baldwin Grammy Jazz Band. He is one of 30 high school students selected from around the country last month to receive an all-expenses-paid trip to perform as part of the 50th annual Grammy Awards festivities in Los Angeles. He'll be flying out on Feb. 2 to start rehearsals; as a bonus, the young jazz musicians received a college scholarship.

Sherman said he took up the piano at age 5, when his parents, a flutist and a harpsichordist, "forced" him to take lessons using the Suzuki method.

"I learned all the songs by ear, like 'Twinkle, Twinkle,' by listening to a tape instead of sight-reading music. For a while I really hated it. I threw tantrums when I was 8.."

When he was 13, a teacher at the Brookline Music School gave him a life-changing recording: "It's a Jungle in Here," a postmodern jazz album by Martin, Medeski, and Wood using multiple keyboard sounds, drums and bass.

"That's the reason I got into jazz," he said. "The gearhead side of me was drawn to the different equipment. Now that I can play with other people, I love it."

While the 18-year-old awaits replies from admissions offices at Berklee College of Music and a jazz school in New York, he plays jazz Saturday nights at Wally's Cafe in the South End. He also plays in a group called Funkanima.

MARC LAROCQUE