I just got to hear every note. After I left Birdland, I started working at the Jazz Gallery. In the end, I still couldn't play, but I knew how to listen. I was probably the world's best listener.

Living composers writing for big band are very few and far between. There are not a lot of them, and I have a talent for doing it. I am zeroing in on what I do best.

I like chords that are very lush with all the lush parts taken out.

When you have 13 horns, and one is soloing, you have 12 people to play the richest, fullest chord you could ever imagine behind that solo.

It would be really hard to get serious about anything political today unless it was a joke.

What's interesting about a person without problems?

I don't need much coaxing.