I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would have never written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker never would have played anything but swing music. There comes a point at which you have to stand up and say, this is what I have to do.

Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.

If youre going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If youre going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation thats based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, youre down to about 10 people or so.

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.