My father was a teacher, my mama was a community worker, I taught in so many schools. So when you get that experience of how to communicate with younger people, put that hand on them and give them that old-school feeling, the maturity and adult, a lot of our kids just need the feeling of that love, and that's the frame of reference that I teach from and that's the frame of reference that all of our musicians in the Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Through first-class education, a generation marches down the long uncertain road of the future with confidence.

My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.

We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don't understand what is already melted.

Don't wish for someone else to do later what you can do now.

I love Gustavo Dudamel and I love what he does for classical music, and I love what he comes out of, El Sistema and the old man Abreu. When we were in Venezuela, I had the chance to go to his building. He had, like, five or six orchestras playing of kids from the hood playing, like, Mahler's third symphony and Shostakovich fifth and Beethoven. Man, it's unbelievable. I mean, they could play.

Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician