Sometimes I say to my students, "We get to come and listen to our favorite recordings and try to learn from them and emulate that and hopefully we can inspire other people the way we've been inspired."

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.

The first CD I had, that I think had had any redeeming qualities to it, I did when I was 25 with a relatively small label called Chiarascuro.

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

Barry Harris had a club called Jazz Cultural Theater and there were sessions there on a regular basis. I remember being there and sitting in with [Charles] McPherson and Barry being there, and just smiling at me. He didn't talk to me much at the time, he just came up and gave me a smile, which meant a lot. I've since gotten to know him and been around him a little bit.

I had made a couple of records in Europe. One as a leader, and one as a sideman before that. It was what it was. I started to work with Maria Schneider around that period and some other people, I started to get called to sub at the Vanguard in my mid-20s.

[Charles McPherson] was kind enough to go to a record gig of mine where we recorded a song of his.