I've played drums since I was 15. My sisters and I all played instruments. I kind of started with piano and then I actually played saxophone with a jazz band in middle school. So, any knowledge I had of jazz music was from playing alto-sax back then.
I never studied jazz technically; I just know and love the music.
I don't like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there's no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don't know.
I just got to hear every note. After I left Birdland, I started working at the Jazz Gallery. In the end, I still couldn't play, but I knew how to listen. I was probably the world's best listener.
The people in Japan know more about the history of jazz and the musicians than the people in the United States do.
I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.
I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.
The kid at 9 or 10 who knows who Billie Holiday is... that's the coolest thing ever.
When you're 8 years old, and you've become subconsciously familiar with the layout and design of Black Sparrow books, and you know the difference between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, something is bound to stick.
I thought, If I'm gonna run a jazz club, if I've got Miles Davis' posters in my bar, I should at least know what his horn sounds like.
