Particularly, in my situation, I needed a way out of where I was. So music was that.

I never got to play with Art [ Blakey], but he was kind and spoke to me a number of times. He said, "You know, the people who are working 40 hours a week. Those are the ones who are really paying dues. Sitting at a desk doing the same thing every day. We're really blessed to do what we do."

[Manhattan School Of Music] were kind of just getting the jazz program up and going when I first started there. I was 17 in September of 1984 when I started there.

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.

Benny Carter came up to me and said to me, "You know, in the whole history of the alto, I think Phil is the guy we should all be emulating." The king! So look, I'm so blessed that my first hero took me in.

I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months. '91 and '92. It was nice to have a steady paycheck for a while. It was Oliver Jackson and Earl May, Art Barron and myself were the house band. I was 24 and 25 at the time.

It's a complicated story [hoe I got into music ]. I actually wrote a book about it, titled For Sue.