A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Any time I need to get a serious attitude adjustment, I put on one of their records, and there are examples there for all time to keep us honest and keep us reaching; they'll never be eclipsed.

Prior to that, I had associated this music with older people, like my father.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Just to be around that, to feel a part of it and be able to integrate the experience while I was with the Messengers, of going and playing gigs with other drummers, gave me the chance to realize that it was not just me that was making it happen.

You know, there're no rules between Russell and I. We don't want to have to have to talk too much, because it's really precious, really special to play music.

I don't really have a lot of hobbies. I listen to a lot of spoken word. I get books on tape.

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

I'm glad you asked that question, because of any musical situation I've been in, the communication feels great here with Russell. He really pays close attention to what I'm doing because he cares.

The first time we performed as a duo, we had already been playing together in various situations.

The magic can happen in a studio. Special things can happen in a recording studio, even though it may seem like a clinical environment from the outside looking in.

Like Russell, I enjoy the fact that when I'm playing solo, if I want to do something completely spontaneous, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to cue the other musicians, or if it's something that's rehearsed.

Ray had so much love of life and the music. He had so much integrity. He treated the music with so much dignity and respect. I spent four and a half years as a sideman with Ray Brown's trio. Music was his life, more so than anyone I could mention.

I have similar feelings, actually. The intimacy of a club: you can see the people, you can almost feel them; you can't beat that. People will say things, and shout out, it's almost like they're up on the bandstand with you.

No, that's not it. The first time we met was at Fat Tuesday's. Benny was playing, this was, I think in 1989?

I think there's a natural chemistry between us as friends; and there's really no separation between the rapport that we feel when we're in conversation and when we're playing music, it's one in the same.

We have different personalities, but in a harmonious way, I'd say. Anyway, we were booked to play at the festival as a duo; and we decided we wouldn't have any rehearsal.

I didn't know when I was growing up that this was a very special program, that this wasn't going on in other parts of the country. Now I realize that I was lucky.

Art was carrying me a lot of the time. When you're accustomed to playing with Art, and you play with other drummers, it's as if the bottom dropped out.

Actually, I've had very little classical training, although I love listening to classical music very much.

He would catapult you forward, and that was his intention with the Jazz Messengers. He would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.

I'm naturally going to react to that and he'll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I'm relating what he's playing.

We have fun, we listen to one another, we challenge one another, we trust one another. We're doing what we enjoy, and we're not just playing for each other, we're playing for the people.

Just to have that sense of family, it gives you something that you know you need to take care of for the rest of your life. People gave it to him, and he passed it on to us.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Here in England we live at a slower pace, have more time to enjoy things - like good jazz.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.