[Manhattan School Of Music] were kind of just getting the jazz program up and going when I first started there. I was 17 in September of 1984 when I started there.

I don't want my children to be what I want them to be. I want them to become everything God created them to be.

You can’t be a great leader if all you are serving is yourself.

Challenges ONLY make you STRONGER!!!

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.

The more energy you spend worrying about the people who didn't get on your bus, the less you will have for the people who are on your bus. And if you are worrying about the people who didn't get on your bus you won't have the energy to keep on asking new people to get on.

Barry Harris had a club called Jazz Cultural Theater and there were sessions there on a regular basis. I remember being there and sitting in with [Charles] McPherson and Barry being there, and just smiling at me. He didn't talk to me much at the time, he just came up and gave me a smile, which meant a lot. I've since gotten to know him and been around him a little bit.