I didn't always have time to practice as much as I wanted to do, that was a real problem for me in high school and college.

You need to work as hard to be a great teammate as you do to be a great player

I think we're in a time and place, the last 20 plus years, and certainly now, it's only more so, where it's just about us creating a body of work. Creating hopefully our own scene.

Sometimes I say to my students, "We get to come and listen to our favorite recordings and try to learn from them and emulate that and hopefully we can inspire other people the way we've been inspired."

I was able to go over [Saxophone Competition] and work a little more in Europe. I'm thankful that those of kinds of things. Simultaneously, some nice things did come in. I got a nice festival that came in, in Virginia through that. There was a club that opened in DC in the famous Willard Hotel near the White House. And the club was called The Nest. I played there a few nights. Some musicians in Philly and D.C. kind of brought me down and got me on a couple things. So things opened up a little bit.

I asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.

I think that's important to remember - That we're blessed to even be able to attempt to do this [music].