“Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body’s breath, and the strings’ wails and moans are echoes of the body’s music. It is the body’s vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations.”

“There comes a time when the body takes over the life. There comes a time when the body’s urges, the body’s needs,dictate the life. You have no idea you are giving the body the key. But you hand it over. And then it’s in control. You mess with the wiring and the wiring takes charge.”

“Here lies Howard Campbell’s essence,Freed from his body’s noisome nuisance.His body, empty, prowls the earth,Earning what a body’s worth.If his body and his essence remain apart,Burn his body, but spare this, his heart”

“In a conversation with the master jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Wynton Marsalis, he told me, “You need to have some restrictions in jazz. Anyone can improvise with no restrictions, but that’s not jazz. Jazz always has some restrictions. Otherwise it might sound like noise.” The ability to improvise, he said, comes from fundamental knowledge, and this knowledge “limits the choices you can make and will make”

“This is why the classical of the jazz music station plays?to give a ground of meaning to our pain?”

“The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.”