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

The American drummer is a one-man percussion orchestra.

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

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.

I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It's the rhythm section that has changed the styles from one period to the other.

You can't write the same book twice. Though I've been in historical musical situations, I can't go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.

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