The Musicians, Duke Ellington, His Thing Was

My Thing Is, Once You Start To Put A Backbeat On Your Music Or Something That Has A Machine In It, You Have Popularity, But You Lose The Flexibility. And You Lose A Richness.

I Remember When I Wrote A Piece, "blood On The Fields," It Was A While Ago, It Was About Slavery And About Two Characters, And I Studied So Much Of Music, I Would Always Go Back To The Original Documents, And As Much As I Can Get Original Chants And Slave Chants And Different Type Of Beats And Rhythms And Ring Shout.

I Try To Put A Lot Of Our Music In My Music - By That I Mean Of American Music.

I Wanted To Make Somebody Feel Like Coltrane Made Me Feel, Listening To It.

I Play Piano And Drums Very Poorly And French Horn And Tuba All Equally As Bad.