This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.

This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.

But you listen to Coltrane and that's something human, something that's about elevation. It's like making love to a woman. It's about something of value, it's not just loud. It doesn't have that violent connotation to it. I wanted to be a jazz musician so bad, but I really couldn't. There was no way I could figure out to learn how to play.

The majority of the high schools and the public schools in N.Y.C. don't even have band programs. Hip-hop in a lot of ways is an outgrowth of a lack of instruments and a desire to play music, so we can't really fault the kids for that.

Flexibility is an essential part of Jazz. It's what gives Jazz music the ability to combine with all other types of music and not lose its identity.

Commercialism that has absolutely no relationship to quality whatsoever, only quantitative assessment of a thing.

The young very seldom lead anything in our country today. It's been quite some time since a younger generation pushed an older one to a higher standard.