If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!

I keep telling Ron Lorman and them in the control room, "It's my band! The reason I have a band is because I can't stand for somebody to tell me what to do."

Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.

I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say "rock". Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him "soul". They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap.

The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.

It's like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of s-- is that, but white people's s--?

You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.