The Bandstand Is A Sacred Place.

The Real Power Of Jazz Is That A Group Of People Can Come Together And Create Improvised Art And Negotiate Their Agendas... And That Negotiation Is The Art

Maybe The Preoccupation With Technological Progress Has Overshadowed Our Concern With Human Progress.

It's Like We're Suffering From An Identity Crisis, And That Identity Is In Our Arts And The Fact That We Don't Find It Chief Amongst Our Agendas To Teach Our Kids Who We Are As A Nation And The Battles We've Had On This Ground And How They've Been Successfully Resolved. We Can't Enjoy The Fruits Of The Labor Of Our Ancestors.

He [benny Carter] Is All That Every Jazz Musician The World Over Wants To Be. He's Performed 20,000 Nights. How Many Shoes Have Been Shined? How Much Mascara Put On? Rouge? How Many Of Those Impossible Bowties Have Been Tied? How Many Love Songs Have Been Sung? How Many Dances Have Been Danced? How Many Have Passed To The Sound Of His Music? It's Been Said That A Man Should Not Be Forced To Live Up To His Art. Benny Carter Is One Of The Rare Instances When We Wonder Whether The Great Art That A Man Has Created Can Live Up To Him.

I Remember When I Wrote A Piece, "blood On The Fields," It Was A While Ago, It Was About Slavery And About Two Characters, And I Studied So Much Of Music, I Would Always Go Back To The Original Documents, And As Much As I Can Get Original Chants And Slave Chants And Different Type Of Beats And Rhythms And Ring Shout.