When [Charlie Parker] saw the young guys, especially the ones that were scuffling... "Did you eat today?" And if you hadn't eaten, he'd take you and buy you some lunch.

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

Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I've stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser.

I don't know that there was a moment, like one specific moment where I was like "Ugh. Now what do I do?" I was just always like, "I'm just in here and if I have to fight with myself or ask for help or just be lost for a little while, but I'm just going to keep looking." Because music was all I had.

The secret to life and the greatest success strategy of all is to love all of it and fear none of it.

I saw that [music] reflected in my mother when we listened to these records [of Bob Gordon]. And I felt it too.

I think what frustrated me more than anything else in my formative years was that I just had to work. I had to have a job. Like twenty to thirty hours a week, a lot of times in high school and college. And that was hard.