When you fuel up with purpose you find the excitement in the mundane, the passion in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary.

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

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

Justin Di Cioccio led a jazz program at Music and Art, but there was no jazz in Performing Arts. After they joined, it became Laguardia School of Arts.

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.

I had a great year with Bob Mintzer [at Laguardia School of Arts]. Bob is great. We could have just brought the clarinet or dealt with classical stuff, or brought the flute or just dealt with comp and arranging... what a great teacher.

If I could have picked two guys on the planet, to have some exposure to at that age, those were the two right guys [Phil Woods and Charles McPherson].