Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!

If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.

If you had to call it "unison", it ain't unison. It ain't the same as somebody else. If you can hear that it's unison, and you have to name it something other than "unison", it ain't unison, you know what I mean? It's two guys playin', but one guy is playin' slightly out of tune, one is playin' slightly off meter.

At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.

I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.

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'.