I never got to play with Art [ Blakey], but he was kind and spoke to me a number of times. He said, "You know, the people who are working 40 hours a week. Those are the ones who are really paying dues. Sitting at a desk doing the same thing every day. We're really blessed to do what we do."

I didn't have time to deal with practicing in a way that I would have liked to. I wish I could have just said, "I've got four to five hours every day that I'm going to go deal with music." I just didn't' have that. I missed a lot of lessons, but I think that maybe was frustrating to me in a big picture sense of, I need the time and energy to put into my instrument.

I didn't always have time to practice as much as I wanted to do, that was a real problem for me in high school and college.

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

Joe Henderson with Ron Carter and Al Foster at the Vanguard was just wow. And the energy of the three of them.

The light went on when I heard Phil [woods] play, and I went like, "That is why I'm playing the instrument." So I got very inspired, I started going to clubs through a friend's mom in the city, again, another person who just completely opened all these doors for me and it was amazing how kind she was.

A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius.