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.

One time, I think it was my third lesson third or fourth lesson. Kim Parker and he picked me up at the bus station. And she just said, "Phil [Wood] has been up all night. He's heartbroken. Bud Johnson died last night." And Bud Johnson, like Zoot [Sims] and Al [Cohn] had been mentors to him.

Aesthetically, I love the whole history of the music.

There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that's personal to you.

Joe Henderson, who I maybe, to me, if I had to pick one improviser in my life that I saw live that blew my mind most, especially as a teenager.

I learned some classical music history, which I had done quite a bit at of Performing Arts. But I got some more with a great teacher named David Noon, who I've been in contact with quite a bit in recent years.

I'm reaching a certain level [at school] that I had been aspiring to with all these incredibly advanced classical peers around me that I had been trying to be able to hang with them a little bit.