All we can do is go about our work. But we can have a goal. We can have a dream.

Every person and every team will be tested on their journey. It is part of the curriculum of life. It's just like riding a bicycle. In the beginning you're going to fall off and get knocked down but the important thing is to get back on, stay strong, and after a while once you master it you'll ride with the confidence of a champion.

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.

A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius.

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

I had made a couple of records in Europe. One as a leader, and one as a sideman before that. It was what it was. I started to work with Maria Schneider around that period and some other people, I started to get called to sub at the Vanguard in my mid-20s.

I was commuting three to four hours a day, I had jobs for much of it. But I was always involved in going to some ensemble someplace. Taking my lessons at the local Jewish community center on Staten Island.