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

Bob [Gordon] died young tragically.

I'm reaching a certain level [at school] that I had been aspiring to with all these incredibly advanced classical peers around me that I had been trying to be able to hang with them a little bit.

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.

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

No challenge can stop you if you have the courage to keep moving forward in the face of your greatest fears and biggest challenges. Be courageous.

I had a great year with Bob Mintzer [at Laguardia School of Arts]. Bob is great. We could have just brought the clarinet or dealt with classical stuff, or brought the flute or just dealt with comp and arranging... what a great teacher.