When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play but I couldn't.

I'm just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do.

The best way to be, is to do.

And my identity...I never really wondered about it because, unfortunately, I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown.

When I did the Abyssinian mass, I went through the whole history of the church music and the gospel music, even with the Anglo American hymns, the Afro American hymns, the spirituals and how it developed, up to Thomas Dorsey and the Dixie Hummingbirds, going through the history of the music, jazz musicians.

If you want to be different, do something different.

Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance.