Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and many other great jazz musicians objected to their music being called jazz. While the outside world may want to put a label on it, those who create it think of it just as music, and tend not to classify it.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

When I was first aware that I couldn't read music I didn't know I couldn't read because I could play the music that was in front of me.

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

My dad was the manager at the 45,000-acre ranch, but he owned his own 1,200-acre ranch, and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school, from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied, and he kept track of them for years for me. And that was my herd.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies