My work has been marginalized as far as the jazz-business complex is concerned, or the contemporary-music complex.

I have learned through time that not everyone is interested in the kinds of things that fascinate me.

I am interested in the study of music and the discipline of music and the experience of music and music as a esoteric mechanism to continue my real intentions.

Growing up in the '50s and being in the '60s, in that revolutionary time space, I thought freedom was what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, it became clear that the last thing I was interested in was freedom. Because if you're going to be free, you have to be free from something.

Is jazz a rhythm, or is it a vibration?

There is more to creative mastership than the surface of satisfaction and political certainty. The music of Joe Fonda is part of a living tradition of belief and dedication. Future historians will be surprised at the breadth of Mr. Fonda's offerings. This is a real virtuoso and composer of the highest order.

Everybody in America is angry about something.

Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.

For the most basic assumption that dictated my early attempts to respond to creative music commentary was the mistaken belief that western journalists had some fundamental understanding of black creativity—or even western creativity—but this assumption was seriously in error.