In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.

I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are.

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 soul gives us resilience - an essential quality since we constantly have to rebound from hardship.

I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad.

So when we spend all of our time trying to separate that which is already joined, it's a waste of time.