“He really had great time feel, great technique, played with great authority and energy. He was just a natural saxophone player. I know he took lessons with Joe Allard and all that stuff, but so did a lot of people. You could tell he’d put in his time studying the jazz language. I never heard anything of him playing that I disliked. I didn’t care if he was trying to sound like Sonny Rollins or whatever, he just sounded great. Everybody admired Steve.”