My mother was a singer, and I never heard her sing a note in my life.

Things dribbled in in dribs and drabs through my 20s. But it was a struggle.

Larry [ Laurenzano] said to me one day near the end of junior high, "Jon, are you Jewish?" I said, "No." And he said, "Well neither am I. I'm not sure of Caesar DiMauro, but he teaches at the JCC and I got you a scholarship there."

Negative thoughts are the nails that build a prison of failure.

I also met Charles McPherson around that time, end of high school. I was 17 and I had followed Phil around for a year and pestered him enough to finally give me saxophone lessons. So all of a sudden I've got Phil Woods and Charles McPherson around me.

I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.

The secret to life and the greatest success strategy of all is to love all of it and fear none of it.