Making a record is like painting a school bus with a toothbrush

Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared. I didnt have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trumpet and my scrawled, pencilled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.

You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.

Whenever a woman would come too close, I would cut her off. Part of that was vindictive - but that was totally subconscious.

I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it.

It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.

The people who make it to the top - whether they're musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos - are addicted to their calling ... [they] are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.