I learned a lot off of Beale Street. I would have to put that first. Herman Green, Calvin Newborn, the guys in the Elvis Presley band I studied under, the Sun Rhythm Section I used to play with — they probably formed me more than anything. That’s kind of how I came up.

Dave Aron and I started in Memphis. We partnered up very young. When Dave got into doing Snoop Dog, he called me and told me they were doing horns. I got on a bus and took off.

There are a lot of jam band guys that, if they don’t have a big crowd, they can’t play. I don’t need that. I just need one guy, and I’m happy. We have a term for it. It’s called playing the cave. If you walk in the theater and there are only twenty people there you still play your ass off and enjoy it.

I’m always trying to add a local kid to my collaborations. Guys have given me those chances, and that means a lot to me. I try to share opportunities. When I take a chance on a kid from Duluth, Minnesota, that’s fun because it really surprises the other guys in the band.

I’m free to play anything I want, anytime I want, anywhere I want. All the freeform stuff comes from Coltrane. It’s about listening. When everything clicks, when a neat collaboration clicks, and you all know it. You can feel the spiral come together.

It’s fun to take this jazz-fusion avant garde stuff to middle-of-nowhere, Colorado, and have people get it. To go into a bluegrass bar and pull off jazz-fusion — that’s a good one. When you start playing and the crowd gets it, with no vocals and no covers — it bridges the gap.

I’m not really into money. I’d rather spread the knowledge. Let’s say there’s this giant band, and they needed me for three songs, and I played the same stupid horn parts every night in the same way. I’d be bored to death and die, even if I made five grand a week.

I have an FBI agent that goes to all my shows in New York, and a circuit judge in Boulder county that hits my shows out there, and I love it. I like to hang out and have a drink with the kids, but I also like hanging out with the FBI guy.

We surely like Wild Turkey. That goes back a long time. Every year we go camping and canoeing in the Boundary Waters with the band. One of the Banyan guys, Clint Wagner, came with me. It was pouring rain for three days straight, and we finally get to the Indian Petroglyphs. Clint brought a backpack guitar and I had my trumpet. We pulled out the whiskey and made camp cocktails. Our favorite was Swiss Miss and Wild Turkey, ‘cause you heat it up and it’s awesome. We started jamming some sick gypsy jam to our friends. Everybody loves those camp cocktails.

I do like Stranahan’s Whiskey. We made it guys, we made it to Durango through the avalanche. We made it to Crested Butte. I like to sip my whiskey, I put it in a highball glass neat and I take my time with it. That’s another thing from Beale Street — we sip our whiskey.