Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away.

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

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

Michael (Jackson) was so shy, he'd sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat with my hands over my eyes-and the lights off.

Billy Strayhorn wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy to me is the boss of the arrangers.

You have to know that your real home is within.

We got into all the trouble you could ever imagine. We figured that if the Jones boys and all the gangsters ran Chicago, we had our own territory now. All the stores, all the crime, we were in charge of everything, my stepbrother and my brother.