There's a famous story about Dizzy [Gillespie] and Art Blakey taking him aside, and spending a whole night-long talk with [Phil Wood], "Man we believe in you. You can play. So don't be walking around with a frown on your face or whatever, getting yourself into trouble. You have got a gift, and nobody is going to take that away from you." So that meant the world to him.

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

You need to work as hard to be a great teammate as you do to be a great player

If you want to make [your own way in music] it as a player, which is very difficult, as Art Blakey said to me, "We're blessed to have the opportunity to do this." So just keep that in mind.

[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.

We [with my mother] listened to music when I was a kid. We listened to a little bit of Bob's [Gordon] music, but just a little, I think it was too painful for her.

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.