I made some nice associations. Ben Perowsky and Kevin Hays... Bill Mobley and Pete McGuinness. A lot of talented people.

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.

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

I got to talk to Mel Lewis a lot as a teenager. I think that's what really impacted me the most around that time.

I didn't have time to deal with practicing in a way that I would have liked to. I wish I could have just said, "I've got four to five hours every day that I'm going to go deal with music." I just didn't' have that. I missed a lot of lessons, but I think that maybe was frustrating to me in a big picture sense of, I need the time and energy to put into my instrument.

Love the process and you’ll love what the process produces.

I didn't always have time to practice as much as I wanted to do, that was a real problem for me in high school and college.