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I never really had a classical saxophone set-up. I just had a middle of the road set up.

Jon Gordon

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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Saxophone
Classical
Road
Middle
Really
Never

More quotes by Jon Gordon

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There's a lot of good people out here that want to help you grow and to help the music to continue to grow and evolve and go find those folks and be around them and carry it on... carrying the tradition on in the way with what it is that you have to offer. Find some good people in the music that will believe in you and they'll help you do that.
Jon Gordon
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Remember, you have only one ride through life so give it all you got and enjoy the ride.
Jon Gordon
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I wasn't expecting [the Monk competition] would necessarily do that. So I just did what I did and some good things continued to happen and some doors continued to open and that kind of led me into the different associations that I developed in my 30s and some records that I've made on ArtistShare over the last 10 years or so.
Jon Gordon
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Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.
Jon Gordon
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When you fuel up with purpose you find the excitement in the mundane, the passion in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Jon Gordon
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I think what frustrated me more than anything else in my formative years was that I just had to work. I had to have a job. Like twenty to thirty hours a week, a lot of times in high school and college. And that was hard.
Jon Gordon
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I had a really nice association with Richie DeRosa, a great musician, a great drummer and composer and arranger. And I had a number of classes with him.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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A lot of musicians have said things to me like, Music saved my life. And I'm standing on the shoulders of dozens of people that you've never heard of that were like angels for me that came out of the woodwork. And that's really the case for me. I had so many people that did those kinds of things for me.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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One time, I think it was my third lesson third or fourth lesson. Kim Parker and he picked me up at the bus station. And she just said, Phil [Wood] has been up all night. He's heartbroken. Bud Johnson died last night. And Bud Johnson, like Zoot [Sims] and Al [Cohn] had been mentors to him.
Jon Gordon
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Hearing Phil [wood] a lot, those few years especially when I was going to hear music and Tom Harrell was in the band. Man that was incredible. Hearing Tom at that period, and hearing Phil in that period, and also [Charles] McPherson. Those three guys were very impactful. Very inspiring to me at the time.
Jon Gordon
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Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others.
Jon Gordon
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Letting people share their gifts and strengths is real love.
Jon Gordon
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The Monk competition did open some doors. And I was thankful for that.
Jon Gordon
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When you believe, the impossible becomes possible. What you believe will become what is true. Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow. Don’t look at your challenges look up and look out into the future. Don’t focus on your circumstances. Focus on the right beliefs that will help you build your success.
Jon Gordon
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I took some comp for non-comp major classes with Giacomo Bracali and Ludmila Ulela, who was a really famous composition teacher.
Jon Gordon
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Joe Henderson with Ron Carter and Al Foster at the Vanguard was just wow. And the energy of the three of them.
Jon Gordon
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Phil [Wood] said to me in the car going back, he said, Look man, you better know why you're playing this music. Because I've known too many who lived and died for it. And if you're not trying to change the world, I'm not interested.
Jon Gordon
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If you are complaining you can't be thinking about or creating what you do want.
Jon Gordon