The best thing you can do is just go and have fun with [competition].

The goal is not to be better than anyone else but rather be better than you were yesterday.

It's very unlikely you're a genius, but, if you're ready to work at it hard and you want to listen to music all the time and you want to learn about it and you want to be around the people who do it, you'll find your own way.

There were a lot of great things you could go and hear for very little money at the time [ '80s]. Mike Stern is still playing at the 55 Bar on Mondays or Wednesdays.

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.

I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months. '91 and '92. It was nice to have a steady paycheck for a while. It was Oliver Jackson and Earl May, Art Barron and myself were the house band. I was 24 and 25 at the time.

Phil [Wood] was very passionate. Very committed. He felt very blessed that the people that cared about him and took him aside... if he was out of line or drinking too much, being too surly.