Excerpt below is from an interview with Tony Monaco.

The full interview can be found here:

Tony Monaco Interview

"That’s how I met Jimmy Smith. I was so into Jimmy Smith. Once I started getting some of these things down, I would start sending Jimmy Smith cassette tapes of me trying to emulate him on the accordion. That’s how I got a call back from Jimmy Smith, because he was honored that an accordion player, a little kid, was trying to sound like him. "