I don't like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there's no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don't know.

I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies - other people can't get nothing out of a song, but he can, which takes a lot of imagination.

White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything - you know what I mean?

Catch Harry Belafonte. He's got a helluva rhythm section.And so have the Pointer Sisters. And that little guy with Sammy Clayton. He plays the whole show with 40 members.

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.

In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.

A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear can hear that. Music is always changing. It changes because of the times and the technology that's available, the material that things are made of, like plastic cars instead of steel. So when you hear an accident today it sounds different, not all the metal colliding like it was in the forties and fifties. Musicians pick up sounds and incorporate that into their playing, so the music that they make will be different.