I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.

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

The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play.

Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.

When you study our greatest artists, you will find that they give us a key to understand how to deal with each other, and that our bloodlines are intertwined. It's not hyphenated America. That there is an America, and it is expressed in those arts. It gives us a key to figure out how to negotiate with each other, and it tells us actually who we are.

Sustained intensity equals ecstacy.