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

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.

The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music.

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.

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.

When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly.