I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

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.

The only music I don't like is bad music.

Young people should travel, and they don’t. You can’t know if you don’t go.