There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that's personal to you.

I was commuting three to four hours a day, I had jobs for much of it. But I was always involved in going to some ensemble someplace. Taking my lessons at the local Jewish community center on Staten Island.

I had made a couple of records in Europe. One as a leader, and one as a sideman before that. It was what it was. I started to work with Maria Schneider around that period and some other people, I started to get called to sub at the Vanguard in my mid-20s.

There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that's personal to you.

The first CD I had, that I think had had any redeeming qualities to it, I did when I was 25 with a relatively small label called Chiarascuro.

I saw a nice interview with Dave Binney recently. He was saying, "Man it was never easy. It's not like 'Oh wow, the good old days.' What, when certain people couldn't vote?" There was more work for musicians in the '40s, '50s, '60s. But I don't think it was ever easy.

By the latter part of high school, by the middle of junior year in high school, Jay Rodriguez played me some Irakere records that that Paquito [D'Rivera] was on. And he also played me and our friend, Curtis Haywood, some Phil Woods records. And when I heard Phil, I just about lost my mind. I was playing the Charlie Parker Omnibook as part of my lessons. This was the '80s. There was no YouTube and all that. And we had three or four jazz records at that point.