Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared. I didnt have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trumpet and my scrawled, pencilled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.

I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs.

My brother died of cancer two years ago (1998), renal cell carcinoma. He was my only real brother and I didn't know what to do. I'd never been so desperate in my life.

The process is the most beautiful part.

Communications are making this one world. Back in the day, 400-500 years ago, nobody knew what anyone else was doing. It's on the 6 O'Clock news now. Now we can say, Oh, that's the way they live. Oh, they do that!! Opportunities, the chance to bring about change, it's all based on communication. Communication and jet planes.

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.