I was in choir [at school]. — Jon Gordon

I didn’t always have time to practice as much as I wanted to do, that was a real problem for me in high school and college. — Jon Gordon

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

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

I had a lot of bad habits in how I was playing the horn. And I slowly, in high school and college, started to recognize them and get them a little better. But it was not an overnight process, I’ll say that. — Jon Gordon

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. — Jon Gordon

Justin Di Cioccio led a jazz program at Music and Art, but there was no jazz in Performing Arts. After they joined, it became Laguardia School of Arts. — Jon Gordon

Love is the answer for the team’s success. — Jon Gordon

You do [jazz] because you love it and hope many some others may as well. You do this because you need it. — Jon Gordon

Aesthetically, I love the whole history of the music. — Jon Gordon

There are a lot of different ways you can be a part of this music and love it and make a contribution that’s personal to you. — Jon Gordon

You fuel your life with trust and love instead of fear and doubt. — Jon Gordon

Letting people share their gifts and strengths is real love. — Jon Gordon

I was really falling in love with jazz and dedicating myself in that direction. — Jon Gordon

Love the process and you’ll love what the process produces. — Jon Gordon

Now we also need people who just love to listen to the music. And we need people that want to work to facilitate it. That want to do work, have somebody like Bret Primack, the jazz video guy. — Jon Gordon

Your team doesn’t care if you are a superstar. They care if you are a super team member. — Jon Gordon

The character you possess during the drought is what your team will remember during the harvest. — Jon Gordon

Team beats talent when talent isn’t a team. — Jon Gordon

Teams rise and fall on culture, leadership, relationships, attitude and effort. — Jon Gordon

Great team members hold each other accountable to the high standards and excellence their culture expects and demands. — Jon Gordon

Great teams care more. They care more about their effort, their work, and their team members. — Jon Gordon

You and your team face a fork in the road each day. You can settle for average and choose the path of mediocrity or you can take the road less traveled and chase greatness. — Jon Gordon

Life and success are about what you choose to believe. — Jon Gordon

My life is a gift not an obligation and I Get To make the most of it. — Jon Gordon

The secret to life and the greatest success strategy of all is to love all of it and fear none of it. — Jon Gordon

Remember, you have only one ride through life so give it all you got and enjoy the ride. — Jon Gordon

I have to say, music was always my self preservation survival technique. This sort of sacred space in my life and in my mind. — Jon Gordon

My mother was a singer, and I never heard her sing a note in my life. — Jon Gordon

Teaching has definitely become a big part of my life in the past ten plus years. As it often does for many dedicated players. Because you can have some great gigs. — Jon Gordon

The goal in life is to live young, have fun, and arrive at your final destination as late as possible, with a smile on your face. — Jon Gordon

Remember, life gives us warnings for a reason. Learn from this. Do things differently. — Jon Gordon

Purpose is the ultimate fuel for our journey through life. When we drive with purpose we don’t get tired or bored and our engines don’t burn out. — Jon Gordon

Joe Henderson, who I maybe, to me, if I had to pick one improviser in my life that I saw live that blew my mind most, especially as a teenager. — Jon Gordon

I just lucked into a lot of good people man. In my life and through friends, and in the music, that really embraced me and took care of me. I’m a lucky guy. — Jon Gordon

Don’t waste your energy on those who don’t get on your bus. — Jon Gordon

Enthusiasm attracts more passengers and energizes them during the ride. — Jon Gordon

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos, which means, ‘inspired’ or ‘filled with the divine. — Jon Gordon

Joe Henderson with Ron Carter and Al Foster at the Vanguard was just wow. And the energy of the three of them. — Jon Gordon

Success is measured by what we accomplish instead of who we become. — Jon Gordon

You are not a true success unless you are helping others be successful. — Jon Gordon

Don’t chase success. Decide to make a difference and success will find you. — Jon Gordon

Often the difference between success and failure is belief. — Jon Gordon

Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow. — Jon Gordon

Don’t focus on your circumstances. Focus on the right beliefs that will help you build your success. — Jon Gordon

Great leaders know that success is a process, not a destination. — Jon Gordon

The key to success is to be a lifelong learner who continuously works hard to improve. — Jon Gordon

So often the difference between success and failure is belief. Belief leads to action and execution. — Jon Gordon

Positive energy and positive people create positive results. — Jon Gordon

Lead with optimism, enthusiasm and positive energy, guard against pessimism and weed out negativity. — Jon Gordon

It’s not easy to deal with the negativity in the world but it’s something that’s got to be done. Your success and life are so important that you must surround yourself with a positive support team. — Jon Gordon

One person can’t make a team but one person can break a team. Stay positive! — Jon Gordon

The best legacy you could leave is not some building that is names after you or a piece of jewelry but rather a world that has been impacted and touched by your presence, your joy, and your positive actions. — Jon Gordon

Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t. — Jon Gordon

Negative people often tend to create negative cultures whereas positive corporate cultures are created by positive people. — Jon Gordon

Every morning you have a choice. Are you going to be a positive thinker or a negative thinker? Positive thinking will energize you. — Jon Gordon

Negative thoughts are the nails that build a prison of failure. — Jon Gordon

One negative person can create a miserable office environment for everyone else. — Jon Gordon

One negative teammate can sabotage a team. One person can’t make a team but one person can break a team. — Jon Gordon

Don’t let negative people drain your energy. Focus on your positive energy and kill them with kindness. Energy vampires are no match for your positive energy. — Jon Gordon

There is certainly a lot of negativity in the world and choosing positive energy helps us deal with the negative people and negative situations that can knock us off course. — Jon Gordon

I think that’s important to remember–That we’re blessed to even be able to attempt to do this [music]. — Jon Gordon

I just think that I associated music with something that was healing and transformative as a kid. — Jon Gordon

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

Particularly, in my situation, I needed a way out of where I was. So music was that. — Jon Gordon

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

Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I’ve stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser. — Jon Gordon

If you want to make [your own way in music] it as a player, which is very difficult, as Art Blakey said to me, ‘We’re blessed to have the opportunity to do this.’ So just keep that in mind. — Jon Gordon

It’s a complicated story [hoe I got into music ]. I actually wrote a book about it, titled For Sue. — Jon Gordon

I think [Phil Wood] didn’t suffer fools gladly, but he loved supporting young people that loved the music. — Jon Gordon

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

I saw that [music] reflected in my mother when we listened to these records [of Bob Gordon]. And I felt it too. — Jon Gordon

I learned some classical music history, which I had done quite a bit at of Performing Arts. But I got some more with a great teacher named David Noon, who I’ve been in contact with quite a bit in recent years. — Jon Gordon

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

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