There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play which is dangerously where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before.

You could play probably a span of 50 years of me playing St. Louis Blues, and most of the time it will be different every time.

Most of the international acceptance of jazz education can be traced to the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, and the wonderful program they inaugurated.

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

My own Brubeck Institute in California is turning out fantastic young jazz players, and I know great things will happen.

I started growing up in a hurry and taking a lot of the philosophy I'd heard from church as a kid a lot more seriously - especially the Ten Commandments - and wondering how 'Thou shalt not kill' could be so absolutely ignored. It took me until I was in my 40s to write what I was thinking as a young soldier.

There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play which is dangerously where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before.