Ethics are more important than laws. Which means that the exact note is less important than the feeling of the note.

The nerves are a problem on trumpet, because when you mess up everyone can hear it. Just remember most people are too polite to say anything about it. That should calm your nerves.

If you didn't have the amalgam of Blacks and African-type sensibility and European sensibility, you wouldn't have jazz. Even in the negative and in the positive ways - if there was no slavery and the abolition of slavery, there would be no jazz.

Our culture is what we did together. What did Walt Whitman represent for all of us? What was his message to us? That is an inheritance, and when we squander that inheritance we act outside. We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.

There's the tradition in jazz of having the “Battle of the Bands” and you do not want to get your head cut when you're playing.

I dress up a certain way because I respect the music.

Those who play for applause....Tha t’s all they get.