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!
Working with Michael Brecker was the deepest experience of my life.
You studied music, I studied the history of interesting releases for lead trumpet players.
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.
There are times when you are a trombone player and there are other times when you are the trombonist.
House of Cards has been a dream job in terms of the amount of freedom I have. I have one of the longest creative leashes I’ve ever had.
To this day, I don’t know why Thad took a chance on me. He didn’t know me from Adam!
They say it ain’t like it used to be, well . . . when was it like it used to be? It never was like it used to be!
Just being in New York and playing music is successful.
