When you experience resistance, you find the lessons that you are meant to learn

Things dribbled in in dribs and drabs through my 20s. But it was a struggle.

Every morning you have a choice. Are you going to be a positive thinker or a negative thinker? Positive thinking will energize you.

I had a really nice association with Richie DeRosa, a great musician, a great drummer and composer and arranger. And I had a number of classes with him.

When I was 13, 14, 15, I had played in a couple of jazz ensembles. I didn't know anything about harmony, about II-V-I, though I had learned my scales with Caesar [DiMauro].

The secret to life and the greatest success strategy of all is to love all of it and fear none of it.

We spent all day together [with Phil Wood] at that one particular lesson, which was maybe the third or fourth lesson, in from 11:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. We often did a lot of varied things. It wasn't just about jazz language and the saxophone.