Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

Those who play for applause....Tha t’s all they get.

We looked up to our father. He still is much greater than us.

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.

It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another.

I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review.

Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition.