[Winning the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition]definitely opened some doors.

You are not a true success unless you are helping others be successful.

Thoughts are magnetic. What we think about we attract.

I got to talk to Mel Lewis a lot as a teenager. I think that's what really impacted me the most around that time.

What I feel the most confident about as a teacher, whatever my strengths and weaknesses are. The fact that I got to be around those people, I feel like that I have something to offer because of that blessing. Being around them a little bit... I'm not them. I'm certainly not trying to compare myself to them. But in lieu of them being able to impart something, the fact that I had so many people like that that were kind to me and talked to me was invaluable.

[Charlie Parker] was kind of a sponge and intrigued by it all.That's similar to what Phil [Woods] told me about Bird, too. Like he was into cooking. He was just into a lot of things. Yeah, it's about dealing with bebop and jazz and Trane [John Coltrain] and post-Trane and knowing the history. But you've got to live. You have to experience things. Know something in this world. So it was a very deep education about what it means to try and be an artist.

Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I've stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser.