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

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos, which means, "inspired" or "filled with the divine."

Instead of being disappointed about where you are, be optimistic about where you are going.

I never really had a classical saxophone set-up. I just had a middle of the road set up.

I love to see people recognized [me on scene].

By the latter part of high school, by the middle of junior year in high school, Jay Rodriguez played me some Irakere records that that Paquito [D'Rivera] was on. And he also played me and our friend, Curtis Haywood, some Phil Woods records. And when I heard Phil, I just about lost my mind. I was playing the Charlie Parker Omnibook as part of my lessons. This was the '80s. There was no YouTube and all that. And we had three or four jazz records at that point.

We had Bob's [Gordon] records, and he's on Clifford Brown's first record as a leader. I believe it was Clifford Brown's first record as a leader and had the original versions of Daahoud and Joy Spring that were arranged by Bob's best friend, the West Coast tenor player named Jack Montrose, who I later met.