It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up.

I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

Whoever has an original thing to say, it is sort of a threat to the status quo.

I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.

To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.

It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up.