[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

With "We Are The World," I can't even eat when I watch that on television. If I'm eatin' some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.

See, if you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that - but he's got to think differently in order to do it. He's got to play above what he knows - far above it. I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

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

If you're trying to be hip, be hip.

If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.