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

The arts shows that you're civilized, and it makes life sweet. So you can exist and you can buy more things and you can be more - we're dealing with a form of commercialism that obscures a prior relationship to quality, and it's a national problem.

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

Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.

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

We learn a language through its song, and even if you don't have music you have the song of people you love's voice, and you'll notice that song in their voice.

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.