You can't be afraid of failure and you can't be afraid of success, because either one gets in the way of your work.

I think I have more in common with a carpenter than you might think. We're putting things together.

By the mid-70s, I wanted to get out of the business. I was tired anyway.

I don't think I went a year or so without a record between 1959 and 1979, sometimes two.

When you're working in front of an audience, you have incentive to excel.

Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz.

Sometimes you have to forget your principles and do what’s right.