I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it... If you're going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you'll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.

I don't dig that two-beat jive the New Orleans cats play. My boys and I have to have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating.

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

I was always willing to say, "Let's see what happens," when something came up that looked like it might help me get a little closer to where I wanted to be . . .