You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.

I would never try and play like Harry James, because I don't like his tone - for me. It's just white. You know what I mean? He has what we black trumpet players call a white sound. But it's for white music ... I can tell a white trumpet player, just listening to a record. There'll be something he'll do that'll let me know that he's white.

They [police] do me like that all the time! "What you work for?".

The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.

My future starts when I wake up every morning.

I said to [Lionel] Richie, "Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs."

You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.