All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.

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

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can't define it beyond that.

Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.