Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Sheldon, Curtis Counce Group (w/ Jack Sheldon & Harold Land), Frank Rosolino, J.J. Johnson, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver, Art Blakey (in his Jazz Messengers years), Tony Bennett/Bill Evans, Carmen McRae, Basia, Esquivel, Haydn, Wagner, R. Strauss (Zarathustra, Alpine Symphony, "Salome" & "Die Frau ohne Schatten"),Schoenberg (not all), Berg (everything), Webern (6 Pcs. for Orch., as well as the Bach & Schubert transcriptions), Dvorak, Smetana, Janacek, Ginastera, Villa-Lobos, Grieg, Nielsen (the symphonies), Sibelius (the Legends, tone poems & sym. 6), Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Tchaik. ("Manfred" & the Nutcracker), Rachmaninoff (1st Sym., Pno. Ctos 1&4, "Symphonic Dances"), Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev (5th sym., 3rd pno. cto. & Cinderella), Vaughan Williams, Holst ("Planets" and the military band suites), Britten, early Tippett, Puccini ("La Fanciulla del West" & "Turandot" [before the end]), Respighi, Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel, Faure, de Falla, Albeniz, Ives, Barber, Gershwin, Mersey beat, Beach Boys, Beatles, The Monkees, CSN&Y, The Doors, Steely Dan ("Asia"), The B52's, The Police, Diana Krall (when she's being jazzy), A.C. Jobim, Sergio Mendes, Joyce (pronounced "Joycee"), Milton Nascimento, Elis Regina, Ivan Lins; ALL sambas & bossa novas . . .
. . all these people are very central to my being but NONE are - for me - greater than Gustav Mahler.