You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself

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.

When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads

That was my gift . . . having the ability to put certain guys together that would create a chemistry and then letting them go; letting them play what they knew, and above it.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

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

If you make a suggestion and [musicians] don't know what you mean, you have to be able to do it yourself. I often sit down on drums and show 'em just exactly what I want. And I do it and then say, "How do you do that?" It's because I know how it looks, I know what I want to hear, and I don't drop or rush any tempo. It ain't in my body, it ain't in my nephew's body.