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

What takes its place is very dry education. And the tools that actually can teach you - singing and playing, learning how to participate with other people, spiritual richness - are replaced with a big emphasis on how to memorize things. That's such an incomplete education. Survival of the fittest used to mean being bigger and stronger.

New Orleans - the real New Orleans - is the soul of the country.

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

And my identity...I never really wondered about it because, unfortunately, I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown.

The rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States.

Thank the good Lord for a job.