The bandstand is a sacred place.

In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not.

The young very seldom lead anything in our country today. It's been quite some time since a younger generation pushed an older one to a higher standard.

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.

One thing about excellence, it&Mac226;s an exclusive club. And it&Mac226;s only for those who really want to pay dues to the s--. My daddy told me when I was a boy: The only way you can be different from other people is to do some s-- they don't want to do.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying.

Art is a luxury. It's not necessary for you to - you can work your job and you can make some money and never know who Walt Whitman was, and never read a poem.