I got to talk to people like Mel [Lewis] and Milt Hilton and Benny Carter and Clark Terry and... Jay McShann. I just found myself in some circumstances, on some gigs or sometimes in clubs, with the ability to talk to some of these people. Just being around their energy and being around that history was invaluable. And what I normally say to young people that are getting into the music, if you can and go... now there's less of those folks around, sadly.

Alan [Ferber] is a great trombonist and composer. I'm thankful that I got some associations like that through peers and former students. That's kind of what it is.

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

Failure is not meant to be final and fatal.... It is meant to refine you to be all that you are meant to be.

Successful people do ordinary things with extraordinary consistency, commitment and focus.

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.

I didn't have time to deal with practicing in a way that I would have liked to. I wish I could have just said, "I've got four to five hours every day that I'm going to go deal with music." I just didn't' have that. I missed a lot of lessons, but I think that maybe was frustrating to me in a big picture sense of, I need the time and energy to put into my instrument.