Jon Gordon Quotes

Aesthetically, I love the whole history of the music.

A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius.

I love to see people recognized [me on scene].

I think we're in a time and place, the last 20 plus years, and certainly now, it's only more so, where it's just about us creating a body of work. Creating hopefully our own scene.

When I was a kid, I always saw these pictures of a man called Bob Gordon with a baritone saxophone, who I understood was my father. Turns out he wasn't. He was my mother's first husband.

If you want to make [your own way in music] it as a player, which is very difficult, as Art Blakey said to me, "We're blessed to have the opportunity to do this." So just keep that in mind.

There is a very small chance that you might be really brilliant and really talented.

If you go with that spirit, good things will come for you. If you go into it with an assumption that you're a genius and that you're entitled to something, it's a little tougher.

There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that's personal to you.

You do [jazz] because you love it and hope many some others may as well. You do this because you need it.

[We need] someone like Don Sickler, who is an amazing trumpet player and who is also a publisher and amazing producer and composer and arranger. There's a lot of ways you can make a contribution.

Now we also need people who just love to listen to the music. And we need people that want to work to facilitate it. That want to do work, have somebody like Bret Primack, the jazz video guy.

Teaching has definitely become a big part of my life in the past ten plus years. As it often does for many dedicated players. Because you can have some great gigs.

I think that's important to remember - That we're blessed to even be able to attempt to do this [music].

I remember Art Blakey saying to me, "Just remember, we're blessed to do what we do."

Phil [Wood] was very passionate. Very committed. He felt very blessed that the people that cared about him and took him aside... if he was out of line or drinking too much, being too surly.

[My mother told me] stories about Nat King Cole, and Miles Davis, and seeing pictures in later years with band leaders like Alvino Ray.

We [with my mother] listened to music when I was a kid. We listened to a little bit of Bob's [Gordon] music, but just a little, I think it was too painful for her.

I just think that I associated music with something that was healing and transformative as a kid.

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.

I was in choir [at school].

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].

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.

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

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.

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

Bob [Gordon] died young tragically.

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.

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

[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.

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

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.

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

You haven't failed until you stop trying.

Throughout the day, anytime you find yourself feeling stressed or wanting to complain, stop for 10 seconds and breathe. Count your breaths and your blessings.