No challenge can stop you if you have the courage to keep moving forward in the face of your greatest fears and biggest challenges. Be courageous.

I also met Charles McPherson around that time, end of high school. I was 17 and I had followed Phil around for a year and pestered him enough to finally give me saxophone lessons. So all of a sudden I've got Phil Woods and Charles McPherson around me.

Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others.

A lot of musicians have said things to me like, "Music saved my life". And "I'm standing on the shoulders of dozens of people that you've never heard of that were like angels for me that came out of the woodwork." And that's really the case for me. I had so many people that did those kinds of things for me.

[Charles McPherson] was kind enough to go to a record gig of mine where we recorded a song of his.

[Eddie Locke] had a huge impact in my life. He was a great jazz drummer. He was mentored by Papa Joe Jones and he played for many years with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge and actually got me on a gig with Roy Eldridge when I was 20 that I'll never forget.

I think we had a Ben Webster/Gerry Mulligan record... that might have been it. We only had a few records in the house.