I remember Art Blakey saying to me, "Just remember, we're blessed to do what we do."

When I was 13, 14, 15, I had played in a couple of jazz ensembles. I didn't know anything about harmony, about II-V-I, though I had learned my scales with Caesar [DiMauro].

When I was a kid, I always saw these pictures of a man called Bob Gordon with a baritone saxophone, who I understood was my father. Turns out he wasn't. He was my mother's first husband.

There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that's personal to you.

I was really falling in love with jazz and dedicating myself in that direction.

[We need] someone like Don Sickler, who is an amazing trumpet player and who is also a publisher and amazing producer and composer and arranger. There's a lot of ways you can make a contribution.

A tenor player named Bud Revels there at the time. A lot of really nice associations amongst the students. Garry Dial was a returning student. He actually got me on Red Rodney's band subbing a little bit. I gigged some with Red when I was 21 in 1988. So I had a lot of nice associations that came from [ Laguardia School of Arts]. But a lot of my education was going on in the clubs. Hearing music and sitting in.