Jazz never ends... it just continues.

I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.

We have to make ourselves as perfect as we can.

Improvisation is really not so much remembering things. And this is what I do when I play. I forget things. When I go on the stage, I want my mind to be a blank, so that I can - things can come into me without my knowing where they came from.

I'm fortunate that I'm making a living at it now because I'm not equipped to do anything else.

I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play.

You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.