I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I’ve assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities?
I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn’t mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I’m always trying to make a larger human statement.
The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we’ve come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we’d know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.
The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It’s in New Orleans music, it’s in jazz, it’s in country music, it’s in gospel.
My thing is, once you start to put a backbeat on your music or something that has a machine in it, you have popularity, but you lose the flexibility. And you lose a richness.
My mother always took my brothers and me to music lessons. There were six children. Our parents attended our concerts and encouraged us to study and enjoy many different types of music.
The blues is always there. It’s going to be hard out here, but it’s all right. It’s all right, and that’s what the blues teaches you. You got to roll with the punches and find your equilibrium.
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.
There’s so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.
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.
Trumpet players are just belligerant, and cocky, and you know, just hard-headed.
The Duke and Swing represent affirmation in the face of adversity.
Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.
This is our bandstand. If you don’t want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.
Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it’s harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.
There really have only ever been a few people in each generation who step out, are willing to put themselves on the line, and risk everything for their beliefs.
My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.
The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm.
We need more math classes, we need more science. It’s the art of math and the art of science that creates all the innovation, and we have a tradition of great arts, great music.
The rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States.