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.

I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.

I was minding my own business when something says to me, "you ought to blow trumpet." I have just been trying ever since.

Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.

It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

I always listen to what I can leave out.

I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician.