Always look ahead, but never look back.

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

I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

...people will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand...That's what I thought was happening when Ornette hit town.

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?

Music is the framework around the silence.

The only way a drum machine will get out of beat is for you not to pay your electric bill.