I have a tremendous desire to learn, and to grow, and to develop whatever I have that will make for any kind of improvement in me.

My accent remained terrible. It was very hard for me to initiate any conversation with someone I didn't know.

I played a Spaniard. I looked about as Spanish as any other fair-skinned German.

For a while we had trouble trying to get the sound of a champagne cork exploding out of the bottle. I solved the problem by sticking my finger in my mouth and popping it out.

By 1969, when I celebrated 45 years in the music business, I also had 45 people in our musical family.

Duke Ellington was famous for hs very original harmonic patterns.

Dreams do come true, even for someone who couldn't speak English and never had a music lesson or much of an education.