Joseph Jarman quotes:

In 1993, I retired from the Art Ensemble of Chicago to devote myself full time to Buddhist studies and to the practice of Aikido.

We were doing performance art as far back as 1965, just not calling it that.

You know, face painting in non-Western cultures is a sign of collectivism, is a sign of one representing the community, it's not unique at all.

When Christopher and Charles passed away, I was completely depressed, I felt rejected and real down, and so Roscoe invited me because he had this spirit of compassion, and we had gone to school together, were friends and everything.

Only here, because of the illusion of intellectualism, our society separates the validity of human expression.

Well, by the end of the millennium, five, six months from now, we hope to somehow manage to move into a new location where we have the whole building, so we can devote space to all our activities.

In fact, since no one's been interested in my work, I took the responsibility recently to invest in my own work, so I'm producing a concert that was done at the Vision Festival in May.

I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit.

When Christopher and Charles passed away, I was completely depressed, I felt rejected and real down, and so Roscoe invited me because he had this spirit of compassion, and we had gone to school together, were friends and everything."

Lotta people don't realize when you grow up with people, you have an affinity, a relationship you don't get with anyone else. After you're twenty years old, anyone you meet after that, it's different from the people you knew before.

It took me a long time to reach the decision to retire, actually, from the Art Ensemble.

So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.

But back to your question, it was a wonderful experience with the Art Ensemble, and I keep in contact and sort of follow what's going on, but it was also very important to make this step, you may say this leap of faith.

The Vision Festival was packed every night, always has been for the four years it's been happening.

So okay, I accepted, and I realized while working for that concert that I'd been missing something very important and vital to me, and that something was music.

People call to keep me abreast of what's going on.

It took me a long time to reach the decision to retire, actually, from the Art Ensemble. But it seemed more important to me to share the vitality of Aikido and the vitality of Zen training with people, even though it would be a smaller number of people, it seemed to give them something that could last and improve their lives.

Well, dojo is a traditional Japanese word for training hall.

Well, actually, I don't consider myself a jazz legend or anything.

People doing the kind of sound research that I'm interested in still have a difficult time.

I've been fortunate in that I've been forced to move from zone to zone.