Japanese people they hear my warmin' up and they start screamin'. They can tell it's me.It's my tone on the trumpet, it sounds like I'm speakin'.

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

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

Maybe you play a melody twice. You play it once like you like it, and some parts that you don't like you can just switch. An eight-bar motive - you can just take it and put it in the front or back or something like that. It can save you 50 or 60 or 70,000 dollars, a drum machine. That's why everybody uses it.

I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.

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.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.