I find it very difficult to compose when I'm not playing.

With four people you can create one very strong kind of energy, but if you can get 65 people working together, and swinging together, that's a whole other kind of energy.

I don't believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from.

I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last 10 years.

I tend to not want to put labels or categories on the music, only because people come with preconceived ideas about what they're going to hear, or won't come for this reason.

I made many studio albums and I think the danger of studio recording is that if you do not watch out, you come out with a perfectly sterile performance.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.