"I was one of the lucky ones, I guess," says John Haley Sims. The name painted on his music stand was "Zoot." Jackie Sims, teenage tenor man. was to bear that nom-de-guerre from that day to this. He might just as easily have gone through life as Goo-Goo Sims.

The word zoot was, in those days, applied to the suits the sharpies wore-beltline just under the eyeballs, football shoulders, and airplane-wing lapels. After World War II, of course, even the most daring of sartorial adventurers discarded this exaggerated garb, and, like the clothing it described, the word zoot faded from use, except in satiric context-and as the nickname of a very great tenor player.

Because of him, the word today has positive connotations, including synonymity with the pure, throbbing, emotional music that is the heart of jazz. For Zoot Sims is one of the most direct, honest, warm, melodic and hard-swinging of its exponents.

How did Zoot Sims get to be what he is? Why is it that, in these days of factionalism and categorization, he is admired by musicians and critics of almost all persuasions and viewpoints?

Environment is supposed to play a major part in developing a jazz musician. If ever there is an illustration of the process, Zoot Sims, in this writer's view, is it.

It has usually been the rule that the Negro musician comes to jazz more naturally this his white colleague. Jazz is part of his culture from childhood. He receives encouragement to play an instrument and is respected for it in the Negro community.

The young white musician, on the other hand, more often than not receives opposition from his parents, who would rather see him enter some "respectable" field of endeavor. Many white musicians of great talent have had to display it despite severe family opposition. I believe that part of Zoot Sims' great "natural" feeling is the result of his early background.

"They would have encouraged us no matter what we wanted to be," said Zoot of his parents.

Pete and Kate Sims, veterans of more than 40 years in vaudeville, were favorably disposed toward their sons entering the entertainment field. In their vaudeville act, Kate sang, dance, and was general straight woman to Pete, who told jokes, portrayed characters, soft-shoed, and played guitar, mandolin, and ragtime piano.

Zoot was born in Inglewood, Calif., Oct. 29, 1925, the last of seven children. With his arrival, his parents decided to settle down, and his mother left the act. "My father still used to work," Zoot said, "He's take another guy as a partner and go on the road for a year at a time."

His father's dancing talent was not transmitted to Zoot. "All my brothers dance very well," he said. "I'm the only one who never really learned how." But it was a different matter with the instrumental talent. Zoot, in common with several of his brothers, was musical from the start.

But only two of the brothers were to become professional musicians. Ray Sims, four years Zoot's senior, is a gifted trombonist and vocalist, well-known for his work with the bands of Les Brown and, currently, Harry James. "When Ray was a little kid, he was in vaudeville, too," Zoot said. "He used to play guitar and wear one of those wire things around his head to hold a harmonica. He used to yodel, too."

In 1936, while he was in grade school, Ray organized a little family "swing band." The Sims family had just moved to Hawthorne, Calif., and a music teacher at school had asked for volunteers for the band. So did I. Bob played trumpet. Ray played tuba, before he played trombone. I played dr