Optimism is a competitive advantage.

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.

The best thing you can do is just go and have fun with [competition].

We had a great educator [in the school band], a man named Larry Laurenzano. He was tough, but we knew that he loved us. And that was the beginning of playing music with people and really being inspired and having fun and being in a community.

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 think we had a Ben Webster/Gerry Mulligan record... that might have been it. We only had a few records in the house.

[Phil Wood] knew about wine. He knew about food. He knew about art. He knew about classical music. He was interested in things.