Jazz Music Is The Power Of Now.

When I Was 12, I Began Listening To John Coltrane And I Developed A Love For Jazz, Which I Still Have More And More Each Year.

You Can Reach A Situation Where Things Of Intelligence And Refinement And Culture Can Be Considered Elite, And Things That Are Crass And Ignorant Can Be Considered To Be Real And Of The People. And When You Begin To Have The Mass Of Populus Striving For Something That's Not Worth Striving For, Then Tremendous Amounts Of Energy Go Into...the Maintenance Of That Which Is Worthless.

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.

I Have Friends Who Will Critique Me Much Harder Than Any Review.

Swing Is Extreme Coordination. It's A Maintaining Balance, Equilibrium. It's About Executing Very Difficult Rhythms With A Panache And A Feeling In The Context Of Very Strict Time. So, Everything About The Swing Is About Some Guideline And Some Grid And The Elegant Way That You Negotiate Your Way Through That Grid.