Jon Gordon Quotes

I have to say, music was always my self preservation survival technique. This sort of sacred space in my life and in my mind.

Every person and every team will be tested on their journey. It is part of the curriculum of life. It's just like riding a bicycle. In the beginning you're going to fall off and get knocked down but the important thing is to get back on, stay strong, and after a while once you master it you'll ride with the confidence of a champion.

I was really falling in love with jazz and dedicating myself in that direction.

The goal in life is to live young, have fun, and arrive at your final destination as late as possible, with a smile on your face.

Families that I lived with a little bit in junior high and quite a bit in high school and college. Just to have a safe, sane space with food and things like that. That's what I needed. And people were really kind and really generous. So I think the world kind of opened up my first years of performing arts, studying classical saxophone with Caesar DiMauro.

[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 never got discouraged for long, but we all got our butts kicked musically.

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.

I've been thankful to work with some wonderful people and sort of combine forces with some folks that... like in recent years, working with Alan Ferber or his brother Mark who's a wonderful drummer.

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.

Hearing Sonny Rollins live... that was really amazing. There were so many things that really blew me away at that time [of schooling].

We spent all day together [with Phil Wood] at that one particular lesson, which was maybe the third or fourth lesson, in from 11:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. We often did a lot of varied things. It wasn't just about jazz language and the saxophone.

I did, I was in Europe a lot. I would say, mid 20s to late 30s. Less so in the last ten or twelve years. Based on some political stuff and other things, I think I'm not the only musician, the only American jazz musician that's not going to Europe quite as much. I think we're seen a little differently in the world, unfortunately, than we were pre-Iraq invasion and things like that.

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

I never really had a classical saxophone set-up. I just had a middle of the road set up.

I was studying with Joe Allard, which was great, as a saxophone student. Being able to study with Joe Allard was an incredible experience.

Phil [Wood] was known for having a little bit of a gruff manner, but he was all heart.

Failure is not meant to be final and fatal.... It is meant to refine you to be all that you are meant to be.

Phil [Wood] was very passionate. Very committed. He felt very blessed that the people that cared about him and took him aside... if he was out of line or drinking too much, being too surly.

Connection to the music and the history was very powerful to me. I think that's what I feel the most blessed about.

By the latter part of high school, by the middle of junior year in high school, Jay Rodriguez played me some Irakere records that that Paquito [D'Rivera] was on. And he also played me and our friend, Curtis Haywood, some Phil Woods records. And when I heard Phil, I just about lost my mind. I was playing the Charlie Parker Omnibook as part of my lessons. This was the '80s. There was no YouTube and all that. And we had three or four jazz records at that point.

There were some things I was going and doing in Europe a little bit. Some festivals that brought me over. That was good. Some touring I did over there. But there was nothing major [from 22 to 29].

When [Charlie Parker] saw the young guys, especially the ones that were scuffling... "Did you eat today?" And if you hadn't eaten, he'd take you and buy you some lunch.

We still talk about [school band]. Almost 40 years later. It's like people are talking about, "Man we need to have a morning band reunion".

Sometimes I would go on Sundays and play with Doc Cheatham. I was also playing in a band of teenagers led by Don Sickler called Young Sounds, and The McDonald's Big Band led by Rich De Rosa and Justin Di Cioccio. All those guys were great educators and musicians and taught me a lot! Simultaneous to all this, another one of my musical fathers came into my life, Eddie Locke.

Alan [Ferber] is a great trombonist and composer. I'm thankful that I got some associations like that through peers and former students. That's kind of what it is.

Justin [Di Cioccio] was [at Laguardia School of Arts]. He later took over at Manhattan. But I knew Justin through the McDonald's band, which at the time I was finishing high school and starting college, I got involved with. I was not that heavily involved with the school at MSM my first year there. I took a semester off to start my 2nd year. Took classes I felt like taking during my third semester, but by the start of my third year, September of '86, they began the undergraduate jazz program and I joined that program.

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.

If you are complaining you can't be thinking about or creating what you do want.

I'm reaching a certain level [at school] that I had been aspiring to with all these incredibly advanced classical peers around me that I had been trying to be able to hang with them a little bit.

Anyone who attempts to build great things will face challenges.

Adversity is not a dead end but a detour to a better outcome than you can imagine!

When we hear music that we love that changes the world for us, we might as well at least aspire to something like that and aim high. You're probably not going to get beyond your dreams. So you might as well make them big.

I was finishing up at High School of Performing Arts and finally, by the end of junior year and start of senior year, made some progress as a 16 year-old classical saxophone player. But not really... not like how the legit cats do. But I love the [Jacques] Ibert, love [Alexander] Glazunov, love the [Paul] Creston.

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

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

I asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.

I'm very gratified that I had my little 15 minutes,or whatever [at the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition]. It certainly didn't make me rich and famous. But it helped a little bit for a while.

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos, which means, "inspired" or "filled with the divine."

The Monk competition did open some doors. And I was thankful for that.

Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow.

Only through service and sacrifice can you become great.

I was in choir [at school].

Challenges ONLY make you STRONGER!!!

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

[We need] someone like Don Sickler, who is an amazing trumpet player and who is also a publisher and amazing producer and composer and arranger. There's a lot of ways you can make a contribution.

There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that's personal to you.