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.

To me, human existence exists on a multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional level, not just having to be identified with what you do and what you say.

Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer.

I don't know what they're thinking about. Just because someone says, 'I like what you do' or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I've had that experience with record companies.

For me, being an innovator doesn't mean being more intelligent, more rich, it's not a word, it's an action.

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

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