The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.

You got to love to be able to play

As a youngster in the little orphanage home in New Orleans, I was the bugler of the institution. When I got to be around 13 or 14 years old, they took me off the bugle and put me in the little brass band.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

I'm a spade, you're an ofay. Let's play.

What we play is life.

If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.