Well, actually, I don't consider myself a jazz legend or anything.

So okay, I accepted, and I realized while working for that concert that I'd been missing something very important and vital to me, and that something was music.

Well, by the end of the millennium, five, six months from now, we hope to somehow manage to move into a new location where we have the whole building, so we can devote space to all our activities.

The Vision Festival was packed every night, always has been for the four years it's been happening.

In fact, since no one's been interested in my work, I took the responsibility recently to invest in my own work, so I'm producing a concert that was done at the Vision Festival in May.

Only here, because of the illusion of intellectualism, our society separates the validity of human expression.

Lotta people don't realize when you grow up with people, you have an affinity, a relationship you don't get with anyone else. After you're twenty years old, anyone you meet after that, it's different from the people you knew before.

You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here's this vital energy, and that element doesn't even know it exists!

Well, dojo is a traditional Japanese word for training hall.

Well, actually, I don't consider myself a jazz legend or anything.

So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.

Well, remember that we were all members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

When Christopher and Charles passed away, I was completely depressed, I felt rejected and real down, and so Roscoe invited me because he had this spirit of compassion, and we had gone to school together, were friends and everything.

People doing the kind of sound research that I'm interested in still have a difficult time.

I hadn't been practicing or playing or anything. But that had been a vital part of my life.

I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit.

I've been fortunate in that I've been forced to move from zone to zone.

But back to your question, it was a wonderful experience with the Art Ensemble, and I keep in contact and sort of follow what's going on, but it was also very important to make this step, you may say this leap of faith.

You know, face painting in non-Western cultures is a sign of collectivism, is a sign of one representing the community, it's not unique at all.

It took me a long time to reach the decision to retire, actually, from the Art Ensemble.

So all of the music had reference, or is inspired by something of the dharma that I've come in contact with.

People call to keep me abreast of what's going on.

We were doing performance art as far back as 1965, just not calling it that.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

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

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Here in England we live at a slower pace, have more time to enjoy things - like good jazz.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.