And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it.

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

We created the spirituals. We created so much great music, jazz chief amongst our innovations, teaching us how to prize ourselves and how to speak to one another, that our kids don't know that achievement, there's no way in the world that could be good for us.

Trumpet players see each other, and it's like we're getting ready to square off or get into a fight or something.

I never minded giving my opinions. They are just opinions, and I had studied music and I had strong feelings. I was happy for my opinions to join all the other opinions. But you have to be prepared for what comes back, especially if you don't agree with the dominant mythology.

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

You can reach a situation where things of intelligence and refinement and culture can be considered elite, and things that are crass and ignorant can be considered to be real and of the people. And when you begin to have the mass of populus striving for something that's not worth striving for, then tremendous amounts of energy go into...the maintenance of that which is worthless.