I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress...so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play.

There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.

I feel that L.A. has not always been my strongest base for support. That can be for various reasons.

How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.

What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years.