You can’t write the same book twice. Though I’ve been in historical musical situations, I can’t go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.

I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It’s the rhythm section that has changed the styles from one period to the other.

I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through,

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

The American drummer is a one-man percussion orchestra.

I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It's the rhythm section that has changed the styles from one period to the other.

Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.

I always resented the role of a drummer as nothing more than a subservient figure.

You can't write the same book twice. Though I've been in historical musical situations, I can't go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.

My point is that we much decolonize our minds and re-name and re-define ourselves . . . In all respects, culturally, politically, socially, we must re-define ourselves and our lives, in our own terms.