Off stage, I like my space. To be playing jazz in this day and age is an original thing. There's no way that we could re-hash anything that those cats did in the '60s because we're not living what they lived, because that was a whole different time, a whole different era. The music was in a different head space for most people, and it was more popular. So there's no way that we can really re-create.
Critics have to say something.
Some critics can be optimistic, and some of them can be real a-holes. So I can't really comment on that. I guess it all started when I went to a jazz festival in Cuba in 1996 and hooked up with Chuco Valdes. That was a direct link to a lot of Cuban musicians who were very prominent. That was when people started to take notice.