'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.

I can't understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out & look at it?

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

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijiana, and will expire on cocaine.

Essentially, the popular musician in America must learn that his basic job is to entertain people, to make them forget their sorrows for a moment or two; in the same sense that any popular art form must aim at the same distraction value. Any such job as that is basically a young man's business. It takes a young man's energy to go traveling around the country, night after night in a different place, prancing and cavorting around in front of mobs of people all out to try to forget their problems for an evening. And for a young man it can be a good enough way of life, if he happens to like it.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

That's the clarinet I used to use... but it's just a piece of wood, you know, with holes in it and they put these clumsy keys on it and you're supposed to try to take that and manipulate it with throat muscles and chops... and try to make something happen that never happened before. And when you do, you never forget it. It beats sex, it beats anything.