We listened [with my mother] to [Frank] Sinatra and Glen Campbell and we had some Beatles records that I liked. This was in the '70s.

If you go with that spirit, good things will come for you. If you go into it with an assumption that you're a genius and that you're entitled to something, it's a little tougher.

Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow.

I was finishing up at High School of Performing Arts and finally, by the end of junior year and start of senior year, made some progress as a 16 year-old classical saxophone player. But not really... not like how the legit cats do. But I love the [Jacques] Ibert, love [Alexander] Glazunov, love the [Paul] Creston.

I went in [Sweet Basil band] and played with them, maybe half the gig for almost eight years or more.

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.

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