I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review.

Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

I always like to play very contemporary concepts of swing right next to New Orleans music because it highlights continuum.

Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.

Only a few act - the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk.

Blues is like the roux in a gumbo. People ask me if jazz always has the blues in it. I say, if it sounds good it does.

Everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.