Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.

Music is the framework around the silence.

That's the way you judge a car, man, [good or bad], when you start it up. It's just the same thing. I mean, I drive a Ferrari - not to be cute, but because I dig it. I'd rather drive a ten-year-old Ferrari than one of them new things-they don't go.

The reason [drummers] call things "unison", and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like you're a little sharp, or a little flat; it's so slight that they call it "unison", but it's not unison.

I gave the album [You're Under Arrest] to Quincy Jones and he loved "D Train". We couldn't call it "D Train"; it's called "MDI/Something's On Your Mind/MD2". That's on the album.

I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.

I was minding my own business when something says to me, "you ought to blow trumpet." I have just been trying ever since.