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

Jazz is not just 'Well, man, this is what I feel like playing.' It's a very structured thing that comes down from a tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.

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

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.

I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn't recover from that.

You don't try to duplicate certain things that other cats do, because you could never do it as well as they do. Nobody can get on that tenor saxophone and play like Trane, because he's the only one who can spell out chords and sound good when he does it.

My schedule is always tight. But I like to have the pressure of having to finish doing something; it gives me an added edge.