There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. they are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence.

The value of jazz still has to be clarified. People involve themselves with its superficialities without digging for its soul.

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.

You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

Hearing myself so much all the time, I don't think I sound that special all the time because it's me.

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

I appreciate men like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins very much.