When you are playing with someone who really has something to say, even though they may be otherwise quite different in style, there’s one thing that remains constant. And that is the tension of the experience, that electricity, that kind of feeling that is a lift sort of feeling. No matter where it happens, you know when that feeling comes upon you, and it makes you feel happy.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

I think I know what it is but don't ask me to play it

Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.

Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.