I think music should be judged on what it is. It should be very high and above everything else. It is a beautiful way of bringing people together, a little bit of an oasis in this messed-up world.

I am interested in my music lasting only while I'm alive. I'm not writing for the future.

I think music should be judged on what it is. It should be very high and above everything else. It is a beautiful way of bringing people together, a little bit of an oasis in this messed-up world.

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

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 think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That's what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.

I guess I'm fortunate that I'm still around and I emphasize 'I guess', because you never can tell what musicians would be playing had they been around as long as I have.