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" National identity is something that's directly connected to our personal experiences and the decisions we make, the roads we decide to take at certain points in our life. "

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" I've always thought that jazz needs to be heard by a wider audience in Puerto Rico. I want to put together a series of free concerts in the small towns - one with Miles Davis music, another with bebop, maybe Duke Ellington. I want younger people to see what is possible. "

" Even though there is randomness and improvisation in my music, I want to have some concrete idea that I can hold onto. "

" Once I tried to find myself as a musician and a composer, I went back and saw that there was something special about Puerto Rican music. I knew that before, but had never sat down and thought about it. The more I learned about it, the more it found its way into the music I was writing. "

" When I started music, I started out in Puerto Rico with classical music. But what really made me want to be a musician was jazz, and because I didn't grow up with jazz, I had to learn it from a very basic level. I had to go into the history and learn everything about the development of the music, all the players and all that stuff. "

" In Puerto Rico, I played in all kinds of bands that played salsa and merengue. That's how I saved the money to come to the U.S. We used to play El Gran Combo tunes. Half the band was my friends - we were around 15 - and the other half was my friend's father and his friends from the hospital where he worked. They were all, like, 50. "

" Charlie Parker is my greatest inspiration as a saxophone player - anything that involves him entails a large amount of respect. "

" I grew up listening to Puerto Rican music like everybody else. But when I listened to Charlie Parker for the first time, I said, 'How does this guy play so fast?' "

" I feel that, as a Puerto Rican and Latin American musician, a lot of the stuff that I write, even if I mean it or not, is gonna have some elements of that. "

" The way I like to think about it is, even though I started music early - I started in classical music - it wasn't until I discovered jazz that I really fell in love with music and realized this was what I wanted to do for a living. "

" As a composer, I'm basically trying to represent myself through my music in an honest way. "

" Even though the music I make gathers influences from all over the place, I feel that the core of what I do comes from the jazz tradition. In terms of improvisation, interaction, feel and overall concept, Jazz is my main source of information and inspiration. "