An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

Listening to Benny [Goodman] talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.

I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn't making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don't understand the part of money in running a band.

I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.

I'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I'm not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks.

'Swing' is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a 'swing band' in music.

If you wanna dance, a windshield wiper'll do it-all you need is a beat.