My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade.

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

You want your parents to say, "Hey, I'm proud of you." When you don't hear that, you learn to compensate. You say, "Hell, I don't need their approval. If I get my music right, I'll have everyone else's approval." I didn't understand it then, but I now know that's what happened to me.

A lot of the guys were like that - Oscar Pettiford - they just took me under their wing, and that's why I automatically help young people. I just love it, because they did that for me.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day.

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