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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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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
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More quotes by 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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Phil [Wood] was known for having a little bit of a gruff manner, but he was all heart.
Jon Gordon
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Walk down Forest Ave to Joey's Pizza like we used to do after performances, which doesn't exist anymore. We had a sense of community [in the school band].
Jon Gordon
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Aesthetically, I love the whole history of the music.
Jon Gordon
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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.
Jon Gordon
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I was really falling in love with jazz and dedicating myself in that direction.
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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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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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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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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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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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.
Jon Gordon
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We listened [with my mother] to [Frank] Sinatra and Glen Campbell and we had some Beatles records that I liked. This was in the '70s.
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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We [with my mother] listened to music when I was a kid. We listened to a little bit of Bob's [Gordon] music, but just a little, I think it was too painful for her.
Jon Gordon
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I think we're in a time and place, the last 20 plus years, and certainly now, it's only more so, where it's just about us creating a body of work. Creating hopefully our own scene.
Jon Gordon
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Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I've stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser.
Jon Gordon
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Many of the people I'm gratified to see have gotten acclaim like Mark Turner or Bill Charlap. Ed Simon or Maria Schneider or Jim McNeely or Scott Robinson. Ken Peplowski, who is a friend and somebody I admire a lot.
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