I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there. . . . I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday.

You can't compete with Sweets' sound and time feel. It's impossible.

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?

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

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That's a little bit too much.

I've used [drum machine] because I have to have the perfect tempo.

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