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When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

I played the sax at school. I was in marching band.

I love the sound of the saxophone. It became my singing voice, and it sounds so human. The saxophone could carry the words past the border of words. It can carry it a little bit farther.

As a horn player, the greatest compliment one can get is when a person comes to you and says, 'I heard this saxophone on the radio the other day and I knew it was you. I don't know the song, but I know it was you on sax.'

When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher.

I played saxophone and trumpet. Pretty nerdy.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks.

A band asked me to go on tour when I was 22 and asked me to play drums, and I taught myself so I could go on this trip with these people. The drums found me; I didn't find them. When I started playing, I realized how appropriate an instrument it was for me.