Jazz is like wine. When it is new it's only for the experts, but when it gets older everybody wants it.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

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

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.

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.

Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same.