I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some Tabasco sauce, some ketchup, some mayonnaise. I love all of that. Put it on a trumpet. I've just got to have the ketchup and Tabasco sauce. That's my attitude about musical philosophy.

Even if nobody's singing, just when you talk, you're singing. I'll meet somebody and say, "Oh, I'm tone-deaf." I say, "You're not tone-deaf, because if you were tone-deaf you would speak like that. But you're 'Oh, I'm tone-deaf.' You already sang a song to me."

The blues is always there. It's going to be hard out here, but it's all right. It's all right, and that's what the blues teaches you. You got to roll with the punches and find your equilibrium.

The real power of Jazz is that a group of people can come together and create improvised art and negotiate their agendas... and that negotiation is the art

The musicians I respected were much older than me. I expected them to cut my head, and they did.

There's the tradition in jazz of having the “Battle of the Bands” and you do not want to get your head cut when you're playing.

Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.