A lot of people don't know that Beethoven, when he wrote the Fifth Symphony, that second movement, he took eight years to figure that out!
I believe in everyone staying as they are, and when you meld together, you get something more accurate and democratic.
When you play with Miles, you are on your own, and then it's you who decides what to contribute.
My perspective on life is now to try to play music that reflects that life and death are part of the same coin. And to know about life, we must really examine the function - like death. Life tells you a lot about what death is, not what people say it is.
I'm making strides to have dialogue with life. I'm walking down a garden path, something like that. And you're looking at the trees, and then you start to look at them through your inner eye.
When John Coltrane passed, we were in the church for the memorial. Albert Ayler came walking in playing, real out there. He was actually mourning through his horn. Mourning, but it was also like a call to wake up. Wake up!
I know Ornette was playing violin sometimes - that was his bridge into the classical world, to break up that whole pecking order.
