The qualities in music which I considered most important - and still do - were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.

The qualities in music which I considered most important - and still do - were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.

We're working as if it were going out of style-which of course it is.

Complexity can be a trap. You can have a ball developing a phrase, inverting it, playing it in different keys and times and all. But it's really more introspective than communicative. Like a crossword puzzle compared to a poem.

I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.

We used to get on planes, and they'd ask who we were, and we'd say, 'The Dave Brubeck Quartet', and they'd say, 'Who?' In later years they'd say, 'Oh', which amounts to the same thing.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.