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

You hear about the struggles with substances and all that, but [Phil Wood] was a really a great guy. This was a great man.

I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.

I was commuting three to four hours a day, I had jobs for much of it. But I was always involved in going to some ensemble someplace. Taking my lessons at the local Jewish community center on Staten Island.

Sometimes I say to my students, "We get to come and listen to our favorite recordings and try to learn from them and emulate that and hopefully we can inspire other people the way we've been inspired."

Hearing Sonny Rollins live... that was really amazing. There were so many things that really blew me away at that time [of schooling].

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.