Top 207 Quotes & Sayings by Jon Gordon - Page 4

Sometimes you think "Okay, well I'm going to play my horn, and I'm going to study Charlie "Bird" Parker solos or [John Coltrain] or whatever." But as [Phil Wood] said to me, "Man, Bird listened to everything."

The first jazz cruise that I was on was '91. I played with Maria Schneider and John Fedchock's band. Got to meet some amazing people that week.

I asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.

What I feel the most confident about as a teacher, whatever my strengths and weaknesses are. The fact that I got to be around those people, I feel like that I have something to offer because of that blessing. Being around them a little bit... I'm not them. I'm certainly not trying to compare myself to them. But in lieu of them being able to impart something, the fact that I had so many people like that that were kind to me and talked to me was invaluable.

[Winning the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition]definitely opened some doors.

Pretty fortunate that with the exception of two months when I was 23, that I worked in a law office pushing paper around. I was always able to eke out a living somehow. So I'm blessed.

[My mother] told me a little bit about the scene out there and I think, as a small child, I just always felt a connection to that history because my mother had described it to me.

[Phil Wood] was a great artist, and he knew things. He could be mildly conversant in several languages.

There were some things I was going and doing in Europe a little bit. Some festivals that brought me over. That was good. Some touring I did over there. But there was nothing major [from 22 to 29].

I got to talk to people like Mel [Lewis] and Milt Hilton and Benny Carter and Clark Terry and... Jay McShann. I just found myself in some circumstances, on some gigs or sometimes in clubs, with the ability to talk to some of these people. Just being around their energy and being around that history was invaluable. And what I normally say to young people that are getting into the music, if you can and go... now there's less of those folks around, sadly.

My mother was a singer, and I never heard her sing a note in my life.

I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months. '91 and '92. It was nice to have a steady paycheck for a while. It was Oliver Jackson and Earl May, Art Barron and myself were the house band. I was 24 and 25 at the time.

I saw a nice interview with Dave Binney recently. He was saying, "Man it was never easy. It's not like 'Oh wow, the good old days.' What, when certain people couldn't vote?" There was more work for musicians in the '40s, '50s, '60s. But I don't think it was ever easy.

When [Charlie Parker] saw the young guys, especially the ones that were scuffling... "Did you eat today?" And if you hadn't eaten, he'd take you and buy you some lunch.

You hear about the struggles with substances and all that, but [Phil Wood] was a really a great guy. This was a great man.

I had made a couple of records in Europe. One as a leader, and one as a sideman before that. It was what it was. I started to work with Maria Schneider around that period and some other people, I started to get called to sub at the Vanguard in my mid-20s.

Bob [Gordon] died young tragically.

I was in choir [at school].

When you experience resistance, you find the lessons that you are meant to learn

Percy France told me, similarly, he and Bird used to hang out. They were good buddies. And he said, "Man, we'd just walk through town, sometimes with our horns. And we'd walk by past an Irish bar. And you'd stand outside and check out the music. And Bird would go in and sit in with these traditional Irish musicians. Then we'd past a Greek restaurant and we'd hear that. And Charles "Bird" Parker would go sit in with those guys. He was just listening to everything, reacting to everything.

The first CD I had, that I think had had any redeeming qualities to it, I did when I was 25 with a relatively small label called Chiarascuro.

Negative people often tend to create negative cultures whereas positive corporate cultures are created by positive people.

We had a great educator [in the school band], a man named Larry Laurenzano. He was tough, but we knew that he loved us. And that was the beginning of playing music with people and really being inspired and having fun and being in a community.

I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.

Things dribbled in in dribs and drabs through my 20s. But it was a struggle.

Larry [ Laurenzano] said to me one day near the end of junior high, "Jon, are you Jewish?" I said, "No." And he said, "Well neither am I. I'm not sure of Caesar DiMauro, but he teaches at the JCC and I got you a scholarship there."

The streets weren't paved with gold and Rose petals [when I was young]. "Do I have a horn to sell this month to pay my rent, or what am I going to do?" It was what it was.