[We need] someone like Don Sickler, who is an amazing trumpet player and who is also a publisher and amazing producer and composer and arranger. There's a lot of ways you can make a contribution.

[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.

Families that I lived with a little bit in junior high and quite a bit in high school and college. Just to have a safe, sane space with food and things like that. That's what I needed. And people were really kind and really generous. So I think the world kind of opened up my first years of performing arts, studying classical saxophone with Caesar DiMauro.

A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius.

You fuel your life with trust and love instead of fear and doubt.

I went in [Sweet Basil band] and played with them, maybe half the gig for almost eight years or more.

Phil [Wood] was very passionate. Very committed. He felt very blessed that the people that cared about him and took him aside... if he was out of line or drinking too much, being too surly.