I was playing birthday parties. House-rent parties where they used to sell whisky during prohibition.

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

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

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

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.

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.