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Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.

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 rhythm and meaning.

Jazz came out of New Orleans, and that was the forerunner of everything. You mix jazz with European rhythms, and that's rock n' roll, really. You can make the argument that it all started on the streets of New Orleans with the jazz funerals.

The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.

Just figure out what you think jazz is, and then if it fits into that category, it's jazz, and if it doesn't, it isn't. It's no big deal.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

Jazz is really 20th-century fusion music. You take West African harmony and rhythm, mix with European harmony, and boom!

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.