I feel very similarly. I didn't have necessarily the same exact kind of dynamic, but that means a lot when people are like that with you. Especially people like that. And I think [Phil Wood] felt a certain responsibility .

I got to talk to Mel Lewis a lot as a teenager. I think that's what really impacted me the most around that time.

I never got to play with Art [ Blakey], but he was kind and spoke to me a number of times. He said, "You know, the people who are working 40 hours a week. Those are the ones who are really paying dues. Sitting at a desk doing the same thing every day. We're really blessed to do what we do."

I was also sitting in from the middle of senior year of high school at Sweet Basil, it was a great club in New York.

If you are complaining you can't be thinking about or creating what you do want.

It's a complicated story [hoe I got into music ]. I actually wrote a book about it, titled For Sue.

Joe Henderson, who I maybe, to me, if I had to pick one improviser in my life that I saw live that blew my mind most, especially as a teenager.