The idea of life is to give and receive.

I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it's supposed to be.

Bop is at the end of the road. Now everybody wants dance music.

As a musician you have to keep one foot back in the past and have one foot forward into the future.

Many critics always saw and heard that my style comes from Roy Eldridge, which is true. But for many things, not only how to play the trumpet but the way to choose the notes, how to play them and how to phrase all of them, I took that from Sweets [Edison]. He really brought something new to the trumpet.

There have been two great revelations in my life: The first was bepop, the second was homeopathy.

It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.