I try to put a lot of our music in my music - by that I mean of American music.

I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time.

I always like to play very contemporary concepts of swing right next to New Orleans music because it highlights continuum.

When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change?

Jazz music is the power of now.

You need a team. You need people to push you. You need opponents.

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.