"If I couldn't do it, then I'd be defeated. I've got the tools to do it. I never did question my tools."

"Because the stuff that they feed kids now, they'll have a bunch of idiots in the next millennium as far as art and culture is concerned."

"It's something that - jazz is one of the few things that you can go and listen to, I don't care where you're from, what you are, what background you come from - there's something there for you."

"It doesn't have anything to do with yesterday or tomorrow, it's all right now."

"The Japanese actually approach the music on a high level. It's always been on a high level."

"You know the drum was the first instrument besides the human voice."

"Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't."

"I think that people should learn about that. In most music, there's one way that you do something, and that's the only way. In jazz, it's a lot different."

"It brings people together. It brings the races together. It brings religions together."

"I enjoy seeing young people being interested in what they can do."

"The French - they like jazz, they've been on jazz a long time."

"Music. It's all creativity right here, right now."

"There's so much beautiful music in the world, and the kids are getting robbed."

"The first thing is, jazz is one of the few things to let you know that there is a God and there is a creation."

"The United States is a beautiful place, you know?"

"The people in Japan know more about the history of jazz and the musicians than the people in the United States do."

"If somebody would come and they're not playing music, they would encounter certain people on another level."

"I might have played a little bit more in Europe than I have in Japan."