Creative music will only really work in the marketplace if you’re a good businessman.
It’s like looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls when you look at the paper with Thad Jones hand.
You can create a lot of great opportunities for yourself as a musician if you just make stuff.
In the old days, we'd have copying parties. . . you copy violin 1, you copy violin 2.
Writing for McCoy was great. You could be the saddest arranger in the world. . . you could write nothing, but when he plays it, it sounds great!
For the record, if anyone on Broadway or in LA says it’s going to be easy, you have to assume it’s going to be the hardest thing in the world!
Working with Michael Brecker was the deepest experience of my life.
The real art in music is composing and improvising. There’s nothing else. I wanted in my life to somehow get better in those fields.
If you look at someone standing in front of a big band, they probably wrote a check for the privilege.
