Milton, of all people, gave the most perfect definition of the state of mind required to play jazz: ' with wanton heed and giddy cunning.' That's how you play jazz.

Not for me. If I want to tune everybody out, I just take off my glasses and enjoy the haze.

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.

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

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

Our basic audience begins with creaking elderly types of twenty-three and above.