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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.

Jon Gordon

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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Pretty
Pushing
Law
Fortunate
Living
Somehow
Two
Blessed
Around
Worked
Able
Paper
Always
Office
Months
Exception

More quotes by Jon Gordon

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Letting people share their gifts and strengths is real love.
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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I had pestered [Phil Wood] for a long time. He finally agreed to do it. And I was excited and nervous and he couldn't have been nicer or more supportive from the minute I got to his house.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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I was [ on Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition] with Ralph Bowen, and Joel Frahm, Jimmy Greene, John Ellis. You can't play the saxophone better than any of those guys play. So many of those things that those guys could do I wish I could do now, let alone then.
Jon Gordon
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[Manhattan School Of Music] didn't' have a jazz undergraduate program at the time so I played a semester in the big band. There was a graduate program. But I wasn't really that involved in jazz yet.
Jon Gordon
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[Phil wood] put on some [Igor] Stravinsky and say to follow the score, tell me to play me the opening to the Rite of Spring. Or, I'm going to play you some 20th century obscure classical composer you don't know. Or, Let's listen to some Charles Ives, let's sight read some Bartok violin duets, etc.
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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Alan [Ferber] is a great trombonist and composer. I'm thankful that I got some associations like that through peers and former students. That's kind of what it is.
Jon Gordon
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When I heard Charlie Parker the first time on a record, it had seemed like an old, scratchy kind of record and I didn't get it.
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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I never got to play with Art [ Blakey], but he was kind and spoke to me a number of times. He said, You know, the people who are working 40 hours a week. Those are the ones who are really paying dues. Sitting at a desk doing the same thing every day. We're really blessed to do what we do.
Jon Gordon
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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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The Monk competition did open some doors. And I was thankful for that.
Jon Gordon
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I was also sitting in from the middle of senior year of high school at Sweet Basil, it was a great club in New York.
Jon Gordon
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It's a complicated story [hoe I got into music ]. I actually wrote a book about it, titled For Sue.
Jon Gordon
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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
Jon Gordon
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[Manhattan School Of Music] were kind of just getting the jazz program up and going when I first started there. I was 17 in September of 1984 when I started there.
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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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.
Jon Gordon