As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

Many people do think it's naive to improvise in front of paying customers. I'm not saying one way is better than another.

After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

Names and theoretical things don't occur to me. If they do, I'm not doing my real playing mode.

I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.

Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.

I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.