Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through.

My point is that we much decolonize our minds and re-name and re-define ourselves . . . In all respects, culturally, politically, socially, we must re-define ourselves and our lives, in our own terms.