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

I can hear what I want [people] to play. If you don't hear what you want someone to play, then you can't tell 'em.

Joao Gilberto on guitar could read a newspaper and sound good.

You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

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.

I'll play it first and figure out what it's called later.