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

Jazz has the power to make men forget their differences and come together... Jazz is the personification of transforming overwhelmingly negative circumstances into freedom, friendship, hope, and dignity.

It's amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don't have anything else to do.

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.

Everybody has their idiosyncrasies.

I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything.

I improvised my life along the way - I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.