Benny Carter came up to me and said to me, "You know, in the whole history of the alto, I think Phil is the guy we should all be emulating." The king! So look, I'm so blessed that my first hero took me in.

I never got discouraged for long, but we all got our butts kicked musically.

Sense of community was really fostered by Larry Laurenzano, who was a great educator.

I definitely had some moments, where, "Wow, these were some hard chords" on some gig.

I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months. '91 and '92. It was nice to have a steady paycheck for a while. It was Oliver Jackson and Earl May, Art Barron and myself were the house band. I was 24 and 25 at the time.

I've been thankful to work with some wonderful people and sort of combine forces with some folks that... like in recent years, working with Alan Ferber or his brother Mark who's a wonderful drummer.

Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.