There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King's son.

Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don't dance, or who never did dance, don't really understand the beat... I know musicians who don't and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.

I'm sure critics have their purpose, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.

The word [jazz] never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the 1920s I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing 'Negro music'. But it's too late for that now.

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.