Don't chase success. Decide to make a difference and success will find you.

Only through service and sacrifice can you become great.

[My mother] told me a little bit about the scene out there and I think, as a small child, I just always felt a connection to that history because my mother had described it to me.

One negative person can create a miserable office environment for everyone else.

I would sit in at a jazz brunch [at sweet Basil] with Eddie Chamblee, who was a great tenor player. Really a kind man. The whole band was great.

Percy France told me, similarly, he and Bird used to hang out. They were good buddies. And he said, "Man, we'd just walk through town, sometimes with our horns. And we'd walk by past an Irish bar. And you'd stand outside and check out the music. And Bird would go in and sit in with these traditional Irish musicians. Then we'd past a Greek restaurant and we'd hear that. And Charles "Bird" Parker would go sit in with those guys. He was just listening to everything, reacting to everything.

There were a lot of great things you could go and hear for very little money at the time [ '80s]. Mike Stern is still playing at the 55 Bar on Mondays or Wednesdays.