As much as I love Thad Jones, he did everything right except leaving the band in a healthy way.
Freddie told me there were two trumpet players that scared him, Booker Little and Woody Shaw. Can you imagine scaring Freddie Hubbard?
When the band was playing, Thad was happy. He made the music. The music came out of him.
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!
