When kids don't learn about their own heritage in school, they just don't care about school . . . But you won't see it in the history books unless we get the power to write our own histoty and tell our story ourselves."

"When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they're still here and passing it on to others."

"The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas."

Do not fear mistakes -- there are none.

"I never thought that the music called "jazz" was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all other dead things that were once considered artistic."