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

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

I'm just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do.

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

When I came to New York, to Brooklyn, I met Alvin Ailey and Stanley Crouch and August Wilson. They were always putting things in a philosophical context. All the great jazz musicians did, too. There was always a sub-context to what they were saying about music even though they would be very down home and earthy. So I started to develop, in addition to my power and ability to simply hear, a way to place myself in a time.

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.