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

[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 thought I was playing black music. I was just playing music, the stuff I liked. I sang blues at parties and things when I was a kid.

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.

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

I don't remember any impression [from blues].The blues was just everywhere in the Mississippi Delta. It was mostly black sharecroppers living there, and there was a lot of blues around. Sometimes the guys would sing the blues in the fields, working.