Sometimes [playing free] doesn't happen, because maybe a guy's wife'll come in, you know, and his ego will catch him. If everybody's completely just straight-without any old ladies over here, a fourth of whisky over there; if it's balanced right, it'll come off. It has to be. But when you get egos involved with playing free, you can't do it.

A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.

So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It's over; it's on the record.

The only way a drum machine will get out of beat is for you not to pay your electric bill.

Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?

To keep creating you have to be about change.

When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads