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

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.

Through first-class education, a generation marches down the long uncertain road of the future with confidence.

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

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

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

Everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.