If you want to play somebody's music, you'd better go into his house.

For me Brazilian music is the perfect mix of melody and rhythm. It just bubbles rhythmically. If I had to pick just one music style to play if would be Brazilian.

The music we're playing now is based on my heritage, which is Russian, Romanian and Hungarian.

I was raised in Brooklyn, and I lived there for 59 years.

Let's say you have some chicken stock and you're making soup, and out of everything you can taste, some of the things you put in and some of the things you don't. So you start out with an African spice then you hear some Brazilian music, so then it changes. Then you hear Jamaican and it changes again. And the result depends on how much of each spice you put into it. Now, I've been putting in spices since I started playing professionally in 1945.

I had sat in one day in Central Park with Bonnie and Delaney, and Duane was playing with them, so I asked if he wanted to work on an album. You never had to say to him how to play the guitar.

Being selfish to me means that you have to look out for yourself and you don't have to sacrifice.