Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

I never though much about race.

Anybody talented in any way - they're called eccentric.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

The inside of the tune [the bridge] is the part that makes the outside sound good.

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.