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If I could have picked two guys on the planet, to have some exposure to at that age, those were the two right guys [Phil Woods and Charles McPherson].

Jon Gordon

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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Two
Exposure
Right
Picked
Woods
Planet
Planets
Guys
Guy
Phil
Age
Charles

More quotes by 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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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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I had a great year with Bob Mintzer [at Laguardia School of Arts]. Bob is great. We could have just brought the clarinet or dealt with classical stuff, or brought the flute or just dealt with comp and arranging... what a great teacher.
Jon Gordon
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I definitely had some moments, where, Wow, these were some hard chords on some gig.
Jon Gordon
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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].
Jon Gordon
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Positivity is like a boomerang. The more we put it out there, the more it comes back to us.
Jon Gordon
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You can’t be a great leader if all you are serving is yourself.
Jon Gordon
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Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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Earlier that year [1996], Ronnie Scott came to Visiones when I was playing with Maria and he hired me to come and play in his club in London, which I was gratified by. That allowed me to make some more connections.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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Negative thoughts are the nails that build a prison of failure.
Jon Gordon
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When you experience resistance, you find the lessons that you are meant to learn
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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The more energy you spend worrying about the people who didn't get on your bus, the less you will have for the people who are on your bus. And if you are worrying about the people who didn't get on your bus you won't have the energy to keep on asking new people to get on.
Jon Gordon
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We had been thrown out of a couple of places that we had lived in when I was a kid and all the family photos and records and toys were long since gone. But I think somebody had given us a couple of records.
Jon Gordon
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Negative people often tend to create negative cultures whereas positive corporate cultures are created by positive people.
Jon Gordon
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Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.
Jon Gordon