Sound has no parents.

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.

The idea is more important than the style you're playing in.

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

I have often read critical pieces where the critic said that what the composer was trying to do didn't come off. I have wondered what the critic meant if he didn't know what the composer was trying to do.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

I decided, if I'm going to be poor and black and all, the least thing I'm going to do is to try and find out who I am. I created everything about me.