Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It's not an occupation or profession, it's a compulsion.

Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.

You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it's bad.

Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven't; there's no proof of it.

The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse.