Phil Sanborn knew music was his future when most kids his age were busy trading baseball cards.

"I started playing the trumpet in fourth grade," the Marion resident said.

In high school, after years of playing the high brass instrument, Sanborn joined the low brass -- swapping the trumpet's three valves for the iconic long slide of the trombone. It remains his instrument of choice today.

From there, it seemed everything else fell into place.

"I'm a musical omnivore," he said with a smile. "I've played everything from Chinese funeral music to circus music."

And, he says, he likes it all.

Sanborn currently serves as the music director at Tabor Academy and director of the Tri-County Symphonic Band, which includes professional and amateur musicians from Barnstable, Plymouth and Bristol counties. Additionally, he performs in several jazz groups around the South Coast, and has a particular affinity for jam sessions -- a feature of jazz developed in New Orleans, the epicenter of the genre in the 1920s and '30s.

During jam sessions, a group of jazz musicians gets together to play, not with any particular song list in mind, but instead to "jam out" to several jazz standards of the director's choice. Jazz standards are songs that any jazz player around the world knows by heart; an example might be "Satin Doll," originally performed by Duke Ellington.

"It's the most amazing thing," Sanborn said. "I was at the European Jazz Festival in 1989, and we did a jam session. I was sitting near people from Switzerland, from Africa, from Texas—and everyone knew the songs by heart."

Sanborn hosts the New Orleans-style Jazz Jam on Friday, April 27, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. during ArtWeek at the Marion Art Center. He'll be joined by Matt Richard, David Zinno, Gary Johnson... and, perhaps, you! Musicians may sit in on the jam by emailing artweek@marionartcenter.org or calling 508-538-1240. Tickets for the audience cost $12 and can be purchased at www.marionartcenter.org/artweek.

The trombonist's path to Marion was rather serendipitous.

After graduating from high school, he studied music education, trombone performance, and jazz conducting at the University of Michigan. He then moved east to teach at Dartmouth High, which set the stage for what was to come.

While in Dartmouth, Sanborn stopped into the Symphony Music Shop one day, which was then owned by Marion resident John Pandolfi. At the time, Pandolfi was serving as the director of music at Tabor Academy and was the founder and director of the Tri-County Symphonic Band.

While chatting at the shop, Pandolfi invited Sanborn to join the musical ensemble. He did. There, he met a baritone saxophonist named Karen, who would later become his wife.

Sanborn became close to the Pandolfis, even rooming with Pandolfi's son, Orlando --a french horn and trumpet player who currently serves as the director of music at St. Paul's School in New Hampshire.

"Orlando was the person who told me that John was retiring" from Tabor Academy, Sanborn recalled, "and that I should apply for his position."

The rest, as they say, is history. Sanborn has worked for the school for 33 years. And,  when Pandolfi put down his baton as director of the Tri-County Symphonic Band about 12 years ago, Sanborn picked it up.