Jazz has the power to make men forget their differences and come together... Jazz is the personification of transforming overwhelmingly negative circumstances into freedom, friendship, hope, and dignity.

My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children's books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.

The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious.

I'd been in love before - I was always in love.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.

Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared. I didnt have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trumpet and my scrawled, pencilled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.