I never sit down and write. I just sorta let things form in my brain.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.

[The producer told me:] "We can try one more record, and we'll see how that one does." Those records never did anything. My music never got mentioned. My color got mentioned.

I never bothered about keeping track.Every now and then someone records one of my songs, and I get credit for it.

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

You always want to write the perfect song. But no one will ever write the perfect song, I guess. I would just like to write on that has all the elements of what I'm tring to do. And I'm working on it. I'm always working on it.