When I got to Performing Arts, within the first week, a few days, Bill Charlap walked in and couldn't read music but he's playing all these solos from Keith Emerson of ELP, and Rick Wakeman from Yes. Real impressive rock piano and keyboard things. And we had really, truly amazing young 13-14 year old classical players in our year who had been practicing six, eight hours a day for eight years. So it was like "Whoa."

A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius.

Teaching has definitely become a big part of my life in the past ten plus years. As it often does for many dedicated players. Because you can have some great gigs.

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

I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.

[Charlie "Bird" Parker] would sit down and ask [Phil Wood], "What do you think about this whole secondary Viennese school with Schoenberg, Berg and Webern? Are you listening to that music and what do you feel about it?" These were the conversations that he was having. And he also said, what he learned from Charlie Parker was, not that he studied with him in the formal sense, is that the first thing that Charlie Parker would always ask was, "Did you eat today?".

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