If you want to make [your own way in music] it as a player, which is very difficult, as Art Blakey said to me, "We're blessed to have the opportunity to do this." So just keep that in mind.

I was occasionally getting calls for some things. But I would say, 22 to 29 was a lot of scuffling. Hoping to get called for bad wedding gigs and I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months.

I took some comp for non-comp major classes with Giacomo Bracali and Ludmila Ulela, who was a really famous composition teacher.

The goal is not to be better than anyone else but rather be better than you were yesterday.

I was commuting three to four hours a day, I had jobs for much of it. But I was always involved in going to some ensemble someplace. Taking my lessons at the local Jewish community center on Staten Island.

If you think your best days are behind you, they are. If you think your best days are ahead of you, they are.

Many of the people I'm gratified to see have gotten acclaim like Mark Turner or Bill Charlap. Ed Simon or Maria Schneider or Jim McNeely or Scott Robinson. Ken Peplowski, who is a friend and somebody I admire a lot.