When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play but I couldn't.

Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. It's about a man and a woman. So the pain and the struggle in the blues is that universal pain that comes from having your heart broken. Most blues songs are not about social statements.

I get so much from having the opportunity to interface with the younger people and to bring information to them and to represent our culture and our way of life. The feeling and the warmth and the love, it's unbelievable. The type of exchange that goes on between students and teachers or visiting people who are doing master classes, and not just when they're musicians. Even general classes, when the students are not necessarily musicians.

My daddy expected that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He had lived in an America of continual social progress.

I almost never watch TV, except for '60 Minutes' and pro football. I love Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and the Steelers' linebackers.

Don't wish for someone else to do later what you can do now.

The reason why the music [jazz] is important is because it's an art form-an ancient art form-that takes in the mythology of our people.