Music Is The Art Of All The

When I Was 12, I Began Listening To John Coltrane And I Developed A Love For Jazz, Which I Still Have More And More Each Year.

When I Came To New York, To Brooklyn, I Met Alvin Ailey And Stanley Crouch And August Wilson. They Were Always Putting Things In A Philosophical Context. All The Great Jazz Musicians Did, Too. There Was Always A Sub-context To What They Were Saying About Music Even Though They Would Be Very Down Home And Earthy. So I Started To Develop, In Addition To My Power And Ability To Simply Hear, A Way To Place Myself In A Time.

The Young Very Seldom Lead Anything In Our Country Today. It's Been Quite Some Time Since A Younger Generation Pushed An Older One To A Higher Standard.

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.

When I Did The Abyssinian Mass, I Went Through The Whole History Of The Church Music And The Gospel Music, Even With The Anglo American Hymns, The Afro American Hymns, The Spirituals And How It Developed, Up To Thomas Dorsey And The Dixie Hummingbirds, Going Through The History Of The Music, Jazz Musicians.