But if I didn't have to make money, I would still play my horn.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

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 think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

But if I didn't have to make money, I would still play my horn.