Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

I don't really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I'd like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.

After I found out that I was playing music and that I'd have to learn how to read and write music, I started doing that about two years later. Finally, I said, "Oh, that means what I really want to do is to be a composer." But when I was coming up in Texas, there was segregation. There was no schools to go to. I taught myself how to read and how to start writing.

I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.

Music has many uses and I think the most perfected use that music has is one of a healing quality.

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

Whatever you do, it's over when you do it - but first you have to do it.