It's our job to just do as much as we can to enlighten the people about it and to represent it by playing it with some integrity. That's what I try to do.

If you looked around, you'd be glad you couldn't see.

There are forces all around you who wish to exploit division, rob you of your freedom, and tell you what to think. But young folks can rekindle the weary spirit of a slumbering nation.

I hope it might help players have confidence in our own ways, and not to be afraid of them, as Bernstein showed - things like hoe-downs, fiddle songs, and the art of improvisation, and the New Orleans funeral tradition, and call-and-response church singing, and the fact that the blues run through everything. And in our relationship to European music, in that we don't have to imitate it, it's a part of us, inseparable.

If you want to be different, do something different.

What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out.

Certain music, jazz in particular, has the ability to make you a better citizen of the world. It helps you expand your world view and gives you more confidence in your cultural achievements. Improvisational jazz teaches you about yourself while the swing in jazz teaches you how to work with others