There were some things I was going and doing in Europe a little bit. Some festivals that brought me over. That was good. Some touring I did over there. But there was nothing major [from 22 to 29].

I definitely had some moments, where, "Wow, these were some hard chords" on some gig.

Larry [ Laurenzano] said to me one day near the end of junior high, "Jon, are you Jewish?" I said, "No." And he said, "Well neither am I. I'm not sure of Caesar DiMauro, but he teaches at the JCC and I got you a scholarship there."

I just lucked into a lot of good people man. In my life and through friends, and in the music, that really embraced me and took care of me. I'm a lucky guy.

Challenges ONLY make you STRONGER!!!

I never got to play with Art [ Blakey], but he was kind and spoke to me a number of times. He said, "You know, the people who are working 40 hours a week. Those are the ones who are really paying dues. Sitting at a desk doing the same thing every day. We're really blessed to do what we do."

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."