The first time I ever played the trumpet in public, I played the Marine Hymn. I sounded terrible.

I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn't recover from that.

What takes its place is very dry education. And the tools that actually can teach you - singing and playing, learning how to participate with other people, spiritual richness - are replaced with a big emphasis on how to memorize things. That's such an incomplete education. Survival of the fittest used to mean being bigger and stronger.

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

Love is the spiritual essence of what we do. Technique is the manifestation of the preparation and investment as a result of the love.

The fact that we are culturally ignorant and we don't know what our heritage is, the price that we pay is that we act outside of ourselves almost all the time. We make very bad decisions how we deal with other people and their culture.

The reason why the music [jazz] is important is because it's an art form-an ancient art form-that takes in the mythology of our people.