Quote

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

For me, jazz offers so much freedom in the way the music can be interpreted. It's natural to me. It's where I feel most free.

There's so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.

It's not easy to play in a framework that requires simplicity and to tastefully find ways to interject the kind of freedom that we have in playing jazz.

Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.

Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

In World War II, jazz absolutely was the music of freedom, and then in the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, same thing. It was all underground, but they needed the food of freedom that jazz offered.

We all know that jazz demands a cultivation of the mind.