You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

When I'm alcohol-free now and even to see the world around me, I appreciate it, but I never truly enjoy too much of it maybe because I feel like I'm a working musician. There are some joyous moments, but I will not think a joyous moment.

I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is in thinking of what to play.

I learn something new every day.

My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often - in fact, mostly - at the expense of everything else in my life.

I cannot play a lie. I have to believe in what I play or it won't come out.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.