Don't waste your energy on those who don't get on your bus.

[My mother told me] stories about Nat King Cole, and Miles Davis, and seeing pictures in later years with band leaders like Alvino Ray.

I love to see people recognized [me on scene].

Positivity is like a boomerang. The more we put it out there, the more it comes back to us.

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.

Sometimes I would go on Sundays and play with Doc Cheatham. I was also playing in a band of teenagers led by Don Sickler called Young Sounds, and The McDonald's Big Band led by Rich De Rosa and Justin Di Cioccio. All those guys were great educators and musicians and taught me a lot! Simultaneous to all this, another one of my musical fathers came into my life, Eddie Locke.

I have to say, music was always my self preservation survival technique. This sort of sacred space in my life and in my mind.