I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.

I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.

I first met Miles Davis about 1947 and played a few jobs with him and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. During this period, he was coming into his own, and I could see him extending the boundaries of jazz even further.

I always joke about letting the haters motivate you. Everybody has that in their life, people who doubt them or make them feel less than they are. It just takes faith and belief in yourself, and you've got to dig deep into that. That has to come from you - nobody's going to give you that.

We need people who truly live their faith, represent their faith, speaking to the issues of faith through a faith prism as opposed to just having folks talking about faith when there is a crisis.

What makes community organizing especially attractive is the faith it places in the ability of the poor to make decisions for themselves.

The fact is that Hollywood, from as early as the sixties to the present time, has ghettoized cinema into the big industry, a marketing industry. In doing this, the audiences have lost touch with the aspects of film which were to be informative and educational and even spiritual.