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

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.

Some musicians play with their heart, you know what I mean? I don't know what to tell a person that can't - if you can't tell a person what you're talkin' about when they're rushin' or droppin' the tempo, you get somebody else.

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.

Some day I'm gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up.

Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.