Peter: What do you think about the word “jazz”? Is it meaningless, or even derogatory? Also, when you think about all the different kinds of jazz, from ragtime and stride and swing and bop to fusion and electric—is there anything they all have in common?

Mickey Tucker: Listen, man, I’m not gonna get into a dissertation on semantics, you know? It doesn’t bother me one way or the other. You could call a dog a zebra. Jazz is just a word that’s been used to describe this music, and when they started calling it African American classical music, I didn’t have a problem with that, either. You can call it whatever you want. The important thing is the music itself. You can put any kind of label on it you want.