There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else's language.

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

I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music.

A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow.

It starts with a single sound. If there's something in that sound, then it's worth continuing.

I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed.

When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.