I'm a post-Abner Jay kind of guy mixed with Roger Corman and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.

...I have great hopes for the possibility of a dynamic universalism that respects all our people.

I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas.

The word music is a convenient way to talk about what I'm interested in, but actually, in some ways, it's a limitation.

Growing up in the '50s and being in the '60s, in that revolutionary time space, I thought freedom was what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, it became clear that the last thing I was interested in was freedom. Because if you're going to be free, you have to be free from something.

Is jazz a rhythm, or is it a vibration?

Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.