I never really had a classical saxophone set-up. I just had a middle of the road set up.

I was occasionally getting calls for some things. But I would say, 22 to 29 was a lot of scuffling. Hoping to get called for bad wedding gigs and I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months.

Don't waste your energy on those who don't get on your bus.

I saw that [music] reflected in my mother when we listened to these records [of Bob Gordon]. And I felt it too.

When I got to Performing Arts, within the first week, a few days, Bill Charlap walked in and couldn't read music but he's playing all these solos from Keith Emerson of ELP, and Rick Wakeman from Yes. Real impressive rock piano and keyboard things. And we had really, truly amazing young 13-14 year old classical players in our year who had been practicing six, eight hours a day for eight years. So it was like "Whoa."

I had pestered [Phil Wood] for a long time. He finally agreed to do it. And I was excited and nervous and he couldn't have been nicer or more supportive from the minute I got to his house.

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.