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When I was 13, 14, 15, I had played in a couple of jazz ensembles. I didn't know anything about harmony, about II-V-I, though I had learned my scales with Caesar [DiMauro].

Jon Gordon

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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Didn
Ensemble
Anything
Scales
Harmony
Jazz
Played
Couple
Learned
Ensembles
Though
Caesar

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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.
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I would sit in at a jazz brunch [at sweet Basil] with Eddie Chamblee, who was a great tenor player. Really a kind man. The whole band was great.
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When you experience resistance, you find the lessons that you are meant to learn
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I was occasionally getting calls for some things. But I would say, 22 to 29 was a lot of scuffling. Hoping to get called for bad wedding gigs and I did do an off-Broadway show for about 15 months.
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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.
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You fuel your life with trust and love instead of fear and doubt.
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No challenge can stop you if you have the courage to keep moving forward in the face of your greatest fears and biggest challenges. Be courageous.
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Everyone wants to do what the great ones do but very few are willing to do what they did to become great
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I'm reaching a certain level [at school] that I had been aspiring to with all these incredibly advanced classical peers around me that I had been trying to be able to hang with them a little bit.
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You hear about the struggles with substances and all that, but [Phil Wood] was a really a great guy. This was a great man.
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Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.
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Negative thoughts are the nails that build a prison of failure.
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[Phil Wood] knew about wine. He knew about food. He knew about art. He knew about classical music. He was interested in things.
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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.
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Instead of being disappointed about where you are, be optimistic about where you are going.
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The goal is not to be better than anyone else but rather be better than you were yesterday.
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Remember, you have only one ride through life so give it all you got and enjoy the ride.
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I definitely had some moments, where, Wow, these were some hard chords on some gig.
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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.
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Ernie Hayes, Jimmy Lewis, and either Belton Evans or Khalil Mahdi on drums [were in Sweet Basil]. All those guys really took care of me.
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