My Thing Is, Once You Start To

I Believe In Professionalism, But Playing Is Not Like A Job. You Have To Be Grateful To Have The Opportunity To Play.

We Don't Have The Leadership Or The Understanding Of The Value Of This, And When Your Political Systems And Your Economic Systems Start To Fail, It's Only A Cultural Understanding That Allows You To Reconstruct Them And To Get Back To Who You Are. For Some Reason, It Hasn't Dawned On Us Yet.

New Orleans Had A Great Tradition Of Celebration. Opera, Military Marching Bands, Folk Music, The Blues, Different Types Of Church Music, Ragtime, Echoes Of Traditional African Drumming, And All Of The Dance Styles That Went With This Music Could Be Heard And Seen Throughout The City. When All Of These Kinds Of Music Blended Into One, Jazz Was Born.

I Had To Figure Out How To Survive In New York, And Most Of My Time Was Occupied In Getting An Apartment And Getting Money. A Lot Of Older Jazz Guys Looked Out For Me And Found Me Gigs And Places To Stay.

If You Want To Be Different, Do Something Different.