When I got this saxophone, it became a religion. There wasn't TV, there wasn't much money, and there was just a real dedication.... I never thought of it as an art. It was just work that I loved. Not just work, but work that I loved. I loved it so much, I would play it if nobody listened to it. Any jazz musician, if there's nobody around to listen, would play just for the sheer joy of improvising music.

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

We recorded to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records.

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 consciously tried to conceive of what my sound should be.

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

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