One day, Stefano and I were on 59th street, maybe. I traded a presidential pack cig for his itallian camel. We ripped cigs, talked about random things and he probably saw me being a little down. Out of nowhere, he said to me: "Don't close the door. Write a tune, let music be the outlet". I thought that was subtle and poetic. It made me feel like I'm in life's good grace.

A day later, I was at Daniel's birthday gig/session. We played tunes, hung out. At the end of the night, we went back in for one last drink. Some dude even bought us a round of tequila shots. We downed the shot and I heard someone asked Daniel "man what is modern bebop". Modern bebop is Daniel's signature, his band is always called Daniel's Modern Bebop Quartet/Quintet. He said: "Rhythm, melody and community". It's two most important things in music and one maybe one single most important thing around music. If you know, you know.