[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.

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.

We still talk about [school band]. Almost 40 years later. It's like people are talking about, "Man we need to have a morning band reunion".

I have worked in the homes of many successful people and have seen firsthand that everyone fails in life, but failure can be a gift if you don't give up and are willing to learn, improve, and grow because of it. You see, failure often serves as a defining moment, a crossroads on the journey of your life. It gives you a test designed to measure your courage, perseverance, commitment, and a dedication. Are you a pretender who gives up after a little adversity or a contender who keeps getting up after getting knocked down?

I asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.

There were a lot of great things you could go and hear for very little money at the time [ '80s]. Mike Stern is still playing at the 55 Bar on Mondays or Wednesdays.

I was also sitting in from the middle of senior year of high school at Sweet Basil, it was a great club in New York.