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

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

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.

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.

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.