While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future.

I keep recycling and repackaging music that I've done in the past, as though I can't write anymore. Like, okay, I'm done with that. But I need to kind of prod myself again into come on, Herbie, get off your duff and start writing some new music.

A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students' creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.

The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open.