If you have a tone like mine that is recognizable. No matter what I play, when you hear my tone you can tell it's me.
There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.
If you're trying to be hip, be hip.
If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there. . . . I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday.