When I Auditioned For My High School

Jazz Music Is America's Past And Its Potential, Summed Up And Sanctified And Accessible To Anybody Who Learns To Listen To, Feel, And Understand It. The Music Can Connect Us To Our Earlier Selves And To Our Better Selves-to-come. It Can Remind Us Of Where We Fit On The Time Line Of Human Achievement, An Ultimate Value Of Art.

My Schedule Is Always Tight. But I Like To Have The Pressure Of Having To Finish Doing Something; It Gives Me An Added Edge.

I Had To Figure Out How To Survive In New York, And Most Of My Time Was Occupied In Getting An Apartment And Getting Money. A Lot Of Older Jazz Guys Looked Out For Me And Found Me Gigs And Places To Stay.

Many Heroic Things Happened During Slavery. And Remember That There Was A National Movement Away From It Even At The Time. The Era Of Reconstruction And Then The Subsequent Dismantling Of Reconstruction Sent Us In A Tailspin. Then We Had The Civil Rights Movement. Now We Have Our First Non-white President. We Have A Pattern Of Moving Apart And Then Coming Back Together Throughout The History Of This Country. Each Time, We Come Closer.

Young Kids Are Always Singing And Painting. When You Get To That Second And Third Grade Level, You're Supposed To Put All That Aside.