The first jazz cruise that I was on was '91. I played with Maria Schneider and John Fedchock's band. Got to meet some amazing people that week.

Aesthetically, I love the whole history of the music.

Connection to the music and the history was very powerful to me. I think that's what I feel the most blessed about.

I wasn't expecting [the Monk competition] would necessarily do that. So I just did what I did and some good things continued to happen and some doors continued to open and that kind of led me into the different associations that I developed in my 30s and some records that I've made on ArtistShare over the last 10 years or so.

[Charles McPherson] was kind enough to go to a record gig of mine where we recorded a song of his.

A man goes to the village to visit the wise man and he says to the wise man, “I feel like there are two dogs inside me. One dog is this positive, loving, kind, and gentle dog and then I have this angry, mean-spirited, and negative dog and they fight all the time. I don't know which is going to win.” The wise man thinks for a moment and he says, “I know which is going to win. The one you feed the most, so feed the positive dog.

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.