If You're Not Making Mistakes, You're Not

What I Really Have In My Head, My Imagination, My Understanding Of Music, I Never Really Get That Out.

What Takes Its Place Is Very Dry Education. And The Tools That Actually Can Teach You - Singing And Playing, Learning How To Participate With Other People, Spiritual Richness - Are Replaced With A Big Emphasis On How To Memorize Things. That's Such An Incomplete Education. Survival Of The Fittest Used To Mean Being Bigger And Stronger.

I Love Gustavo Dudamel And I Love What He Does For Classical Music, And I Love What He Comes Out Of, El Sistema And The Old Man Abreu. When We Were In Venezuela, I Had The Chance To Go To His Building. He Had, Like, Five Or Six Orchestras Playing Of Kids From The Hood Playing, Like, Mahler's Third Symphony And Shostakovich Fifth And Beethoven. Man, It's Unbelievable. I Mean, They Could Play.

It's Really Not A Stretch. The Checks And Balances Are The Same. The Drums Are The Executive Branch. The Jazz Orchestra Is The Legislative Branch. Logic And Reason Are Like Jazz Solos. The Bass Player Is The Judicial Branch. One Our Greatest Ever Is Milt Hinton, And His Nickname Is "the Judge."

Jazz Is Not The Kind Of Music You Are Going To Learn To Play In Three Or Four Years Or That You Can Just Get Because You Have Some Talent For Music.