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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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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Really
Drums
Jimmy
Guys
Mahdi
Sweet
Hayes
Took
Ernie
Either
Basil
Guy
Evans
Care
Lewis

More quotes by 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 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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The Monk competition did open some doors. And I was thankful for that.
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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Remember, you have only one ride through life so give it all you got and enjoy the ride.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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You do [jazz] because you love it and hope many some others may as well. You do this because you need it.
Jon Gordon
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Connection to the music and the history was very powerful to me. I think that's what I feel the most blessed about.
Jon Gordon
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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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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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It's very unlikely you're a genius, but, if you're ready to work at it hard and you want to listen to music all the time and you want to learn about it and you want to be around the people who do it, you'll find your own way.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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Challenges ONLY make you STRONGER!!!
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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I was finishing up at High School of Performing Arts and finally, by the end of junior year and start of senior year, made some progress as a 16 year-old classical saxophone player. But not really... not like how the legit cats do. But I love the [Jacques] Ibert, love [Alexander] Glazunov, love the [Paul] Creston.
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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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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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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Phil [Wood] was known for having a little bit of a gruff manner, but he was all heart.
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