After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that's how I ended up just being a saxophone player.

I remember once I read a book on mental illness and there was a nurse that had gotten sick. Do you know what she died from? From worrying about the mental patients not being able to get their food. She became a mental patient.

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 don't try to please when I play. I try to cure.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Making music is like a form of religion for me, because it soothes your heart and increases the pleasure of your brain. Most of all, it's very enjoyable to express something that you can only hear and not see, which is not bad.

I'm interested in music, not in my image. If someone plays something fantastic, that I could never have thought of, it makes me happy to know it exists.