There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians.

If there was ever any truth to the trickle-down theory, the only evidence of it I've ever seen was in that period of 1960 to 1965. All of sudden they were handing out major label recording contracts like they were coming in Cracker Jack boxes.

If I do a piece in my living room, if I practice it - and I have the tapes to prove this - it's not going to be as good as doing the same piece in front of an audience.

My uncle and my grandfather both worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

And then adds with a laugh, 'but in retrospect I think he may have been more sophisticated than we were.'

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

I'm a very, very stubborn man.