If you listen to Louis Armstrong from 1929, you will never hear anything better than that really, and you will never hear anything more free than that.

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.

You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use.

Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first.

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.

If you listen to Louis Armstrong from 1929, you will never hear anything better than that really, and you will never hear anything more free than that.