If you go with that spirit, good things will come for you. If you go into it with an assumption that you're a genius and that you're entitled to something, it's a little tougher.

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.

Pretty fortunate that with the exception of two months when I was 23, that I worked in a law office pushing paper around. I was always able to eke out a living somehow. So I'm blessed.

Sometimes I say to my students, "We get to come and listen to our favorite recordings and try to learn from them and emulate that and hopefully we can inspire other people the way we've been inspired."

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.

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.

I'm very gratified that I had my little 15 minutes,or whatever [at the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition]. It certainly didn't make me rich and famous. But it helped a little bit for a while.