I'm Just Lucky To Have

Flexibility Is An Essential Part Of Jazz. It's What Gives Jazz Music The Ability To Combine With All Other Types Of Music And Not Lose Its Identity.

I Try To Find The Core Values That Are So Fundamental That They Transcend Ethnic Identity. That Doesn't Mean I Run From It. I Embrace African-american Culture And I Love It And Embrace It, But It Is A Part Of A Human Identity. So I'm Always Trying To Make A Larger Human Statement.

Many Of Our Greatest Musicians Abandoned All Of Their Aesthetic Objectives To Try To Become Pertinent. And, At The End Of The Day, They Never Became Pop Stars. I Counter Stated That Very Strongly, And I Continue To Do That.

Our Culture Is What We Did Together. What Did Walt Whitman Represent For All Of Us? What Was His Message To Us? That Is An Inheritance, And When We Squander That Inheritance We Act Outside. We Don't Know Who We Are; We Don't Know Where We Are.

The Only Justification For Looking Down On Anyone Is That You're Going To Stop And Pick Them Up.