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.

Most blues don't have a beginning, middle, or end. You just cut a couple slices of blues.

If you asked anybody in my family, they would have very stridently proclaimed themselves middle class. My mother and father were separated, so he doesn't count.

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.

I'm an exhibitionist, I was an exhibitionist as a kid.

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

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