The Best Way To Be, Is To

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.

The Arts Shows That You're Civilized, And It Makes Life Sweet. So You Can Exist And You Can Buy More Things And You Can Be More - We're Dealing With A Form Of Commercialism That Obscures A Prior Relationship To Quality, And It's A National Problem.

I Feel That For Years Of Teaching In The Country And Reading Criticism In Books, I Feel Like The Things Most Needed In Our Culture Are The Understanding Of The Meanings Of Our Music. We Haven't Done That Good Of Job Teaching Our Kids What Our Music Means Or How We Developed Our Taste In Music That Reminds Us And Teaches Us Who We Are.

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.