The saxophone is actually a translation of the human voice, in my conception. All you can do is play melody. No matter how complicated it gets, it's still a melody.

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

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

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'm a recovered alcoholic. I don't do anything anymore, but those things, those things take away ... You're a different personality completely when you take those. For those who are really chemically dependent on anything, it's not you.

You know, when I'm playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I'm davening, I'm really telling it to the Wall.