I went in [Sweet Basil band] and played with them, maybe half the gig for almost eight years or more.

My mother was a singer, and I never heard her sing a note in my life.

[My mother] told me a little bit about the scene out there and I think, as a small child, I just always felt a connection to that history because my mother had described it to me.

I don't want my children to be what I want them to be. I want them to become everything God created them to be.

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

[Charlie Parker] was kind of a sponge and intrigued by it all.That's similar to what Phil [Woods] told me about Bird, too. Like he was into cooking. He was just into a lot of things. Yeah, it's about dealing with bebop and jazz and Trane [John Coltrain] and post-Trane and knowing the history. But you've got to live. You have to experience things. Know something in this world. So it was a very deep education about what it means to try and be an artist.

A true leader doesn't lead to gain power. They lead to empower and give power away.