At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. There's no beat anymore. You can't keep time with your foot. I believe that what is happening to jazz with people like Ornette Coleman, for instance, is bad. There's a new idea that consists in destroying everything and find what's shocking and unexpected; whereas jazz must first of all tell a story that anyone can understand.

I never though much about race.

The majority of juice-heads and winos and junkies arent musicians.

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it.

A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

I made the wrong mistakes