As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.

If you had to call it "unison", it ain't unison. It ain't the same as somebody else. If you can hear that it's unison, and you have to name it something other than "unison", it ain't unison, you know what I mean? It's two guys playin', but one guy is playin' slightly out of tune, one is playin' slightly off meter.

Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.

I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.

The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.

It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?

You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.