We don't have the leadership or the understanding of the value of this, and when your political systems and your economic systems start to fail, it's only a cultural understanding that allows you to reconstruct them and to get back to who you are. For some reason, it hasn't dawned on us yet.

Those who play for applause....Tha t’s all they get.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

We all teach from that same frame of reference. We're like neighborhood - the people who have had the opportunity through this music to gain a platform and spread the message of this music, which is basically love in a form of communication that's honest and truthful.

We need more math classes, we need more science. It's the art of math and the art of science that creates all the innovation, and we have a tradition of great arts, great music.

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

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