Herbie Mann

I always say, if you keep your head in the sand, you don't know where the kick's coming from.

I recently formed a foundation to raise awareness for prostate cancer. I feel it's very necessary that men be more aware about prostate cancer and their health in general.

Being stubborn has helped, being selfish is not a bad thing.

Being selfish to me means that you have to look out for yourself and you don't have to sacrifice.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people who turned you on and you love.

My youngest son, who is now the drummer in my band, lives in Brooklyn. My oldest son is about to move out to California, and my daughters are both out of town.

When you get cancer, it's like really time to look at what your life was and is, and I decided that everything I've done so far is not as important as what I'm going to do now.

The reality is that what you find out is that your head is the medicine. If your head is not in the right place and you don't think positively, all the medicine technology in the world is not going to work.

But when I first got cancer, after the initial shock and the fear and paranoia and crying and all that goes with cancer - that word means to most people ultimate death - I decided to see what I could do to take that negative and use it in a positive way.

Think about it: Look at the strides of awareness and treatment and tests that women have had with breast cancer, that the gay community has had with AIDS, because they're active and they talk about it.

You have to be concerned with yourself because if you're not on it all the time, nobody else is going to be.

I loved the Brazilian music I played. But this is finally me. For the first time I think it's really me.