I was able to go over [Saxophone Competition] and work a little more in Europe. I'm thankful that those of kinds of things. Simultaneously, some nice things did come in. I got a nice festival that came in, in Virginia through that. There was a club that opened in DC in the famous Willard Hotel near the White House. And the club was called The Nest. I played there a few nights. Some musicians in Philly and D.C. kind of brought me down and got me on a couple things. So things opened up a little bit.

Thoughts are magnetic. What we think about we attract.

[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.

I also met Charles McPherson around that time, end of high school. I was 17 and I had followed Phil around for a year and pestered him enough to finally give me saxophone lessons. So all of a sudden I've got Phil Woods and Charles McPherson around me.

There is a very small chance that you might be really brilliant and really talented.

I made some nice associations. Ben Perowsky and Kevin Hays... Bill Mobley and Pete McGuinness. A lot of talented people.

The secret to life and the greatest success strategy of all is to love all of it and fear none of it.