By the latter part of high school, by the middle of junior year in high school, Jay Rodriguez played me some Irakere records that that Paquito [D'Rivera] was on. And he also played me and our friend, Curtis Haywood, some Phil Woods records. And when I heard Phil, I just about lost my mind. I was playing the Charlie Parker Omnibook as part of my lessons. This was the '80s. There was no YouTube and all that. And we had three or four jazz records at that point.

Justin Di Cioccio led a jazz program at Music and Art, but there was no jazz in Performing Arts. After they joined, it became Laguardia School of Arts.

[Phil Wood] knew about wine. He knew about food. He knew about art. He knew about classical music. He was interested in things.

We still talk about [school band]. Almost 40 years later. It's like people are talking about, "Man we need to have a morning band reunion".

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.

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

You can’t be a great leader if all you are serving is yourself.