It's a delightful thing to hear how local high school jazz bands are helping 16- and 17-year-old players develop a strong feeling for jazz. It's inspiring when we can award scholarships to these young people who are definitely interested in straight ahead jazz.

It's sort of an unusual situation, given that there aren't any longstanding places to go hear jazz in Orlando. But for the last 20 or 30 years we have had a full-time jazz club in Brevard. And I think that's because we've got the audience for it. And they've come to expect it.

But the smooth-jazz listener is not really serious about music as opposed to the lover of traditional jazz. Smooth jazz is the kind of music you put in the background. Traditional jazz is more of a challenge. It is America's classical music.

The blues and jazz will live forever, ... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

In middle school, all I was able to do was just run up and down the floor. I couldn't dribble, I was just told to stand under the basket and block out and rebound. Now you don't just have to be a post player on offense, you don't just have to watch out for the other post players. You can do a lot more stuff.

At school my boobs were bigger than all my friends' and I was afraid to show them. Now, I feel they make my outfits look better. They're like an accessory.