I focused on the saxophone ever since high school. It wasn't until my album 'Poetica,' which I recorded in 2006, that I went back to the clarinet. It felt like it was waiting for me!

As a teenager at high school, I felt like an outsider.

The clarinet chose me more than I chose the clarinet.

Because I was a diminutive, arty kid, I felt like a misfit in high school - but who doesn't?

My initial training was on the keyboard - mainly the great American songbook. In junior high, during the day, I was a classical clarinetist, but after school, I played New Orleans jazz and big-band music.

I could be playing high school until I'm, like, 30 or something, at the rate I'm growing.