"I like teaching at Berklee because I like the challenges and rewards of successfully helping young people make music happen.

"There are many facets to successfully running an ensemble. Focusing on individual development while also accomplishing group objectives, mixing the technical aspects of playing and learning repertoire while inspiring the creative subconscious of each student, these are some of the things that every successful ensemble teacher does.

"To prepare for the current music scene, where boundaries are constantly being crossed and new music created, it is important that we expose our students to as many different musical perspectives as possible. That's why the Ensemble Department is so stylistically diverse.

"Some of the highlights of my performance career have been touring with Mulgrew Miller and Gary Bartz, performing with Johnny Griffin, Joe Zawinul, Albert King, Art Farmer, Nnenna Freelon, James Williams, Bill Pierce, James Moody, and many of my contemporaries. I think it's only natural that one reflects on their personal experiences when teaching music. Having performed with many of the jazz legends, I think all of my teaching is geared toward helping students launch a performing career of their own."

"My approach to teaching is encouraging students to share what their needs are. For me it's really important to have a colearning atmosphere. What do you need, where are you at? Once I assess that I can meet their needs. I stress proactivity. Ask questions. Challenge things. I want you to be fully engaged. We're not going to waste fifteen weeks—not with me. It's too much money.

"Sometimes students have unique voices, but they're really afraid to put themselves out there. I try to create an environment to draw that out there. If the only thing they get is the sense that I'm totally free and liberated, regardless of what mistakes I make when I play or what other people are thinking, everything else is just gravy. Yes, we've got to get the note accuracy, the rhythmic accuracy, but those to me are secondary, because the lesson I want them to have is intent versus content. I want some feeling, some attitude, some life experience in their playing. That's what makes music music.

"I've been mentoring with City Music since I started teaching here, five years ago. It really just lines up with my life philosophy, which is engaging and inspiring the next generation. Whether or not I'm doing it at Berklee I'm doing it somewhere, because it's part of the way I was raised. I was one of those City Music students at one point, involved in the five-week program. Now I go back and help out the students that are coming behind me and help the program to expand and grow.

"I do about two to three gigs a week, locally and sometimes abroad. They vary. Next month is the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but next week is somebody's wedding. I'm always thinking in terms of students going out and working. These are the skills that you've got to have together to go out and work. Because it doesn't make any sense to get in debt at Berklee and then leave here and work at McDonald's. You get an opportunity here that many kids around the world would like to have, and you've got to take advantage of it."

"I was around a lot of beautiful energy as a kid. My dad was one of the leading modern jazz saxophonists in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. Two of my uncles played sax—one of them also played clarinet—and another uncle played trumpet. My dad was my main influence and inspiration. Just hearing him practice in the house really got to me; his tone just vibrated the house. He was also my teacher, and I learned a lot of things by ear, because he would play for me and I'd have to repeat it back. We'd practice together, and there was a certain sense of how to blend with another saxophone player that was really instrumental in developing my approach.

"I learned about playing with people when I went to rehearsals with my dad at 15 or 16, hearing him play with different players and rhythm sections, like piano, bass, and drums, or trios with organs. I would also see them play song after song without music in front of them, and because I wanted to play with those guys—I wanted them to dig me—I tried to memorize the tunes they were playing. Once you retain the melodies, the whole process of playing variations is alive in your concept.

"In my own teaching, I reach back into all those early lessons about how to teach yourself, how to put it all together from the elements of the music, how to play within the interpretation of the melody, and how to play with people. When I say 'elements' I mean polyrhythmic structure and development, and harmonic sounds, colors, voices, and scales. It's the harmonic rhythm that the bass player and piano player are playing, and the polyrhythmic conception that the drummer is playing within that harmonic sequence.

"I do a lot of unaccompanied playing and try to get everybody to do that, as well. It's important to develop a solo unaccompanied approach—to learn a tune on your own on your instrument, not playing along with a record, but embracing your own sound. Every time I play, I want to have a joyous feeling when I embrace my horn. Because jazz, to me, is your personal expression on your instrument. Every time you play is a summation of where you've traveled as a player, and that comes out in your music. It's not how fast you can play this lick, or this pattern. It's developing an approach that lets you be free on your instrument to execute your personality within whatever kind of music it is."