“Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!

It’s like an act of murder – you play with intent to commit something.

You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.

Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.

A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.

I’m sure critics have their purpose, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.

Every man prays in his own language.

Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.

Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.

Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.

Of the One O’Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: “I wish it were mine”.

You’ve got to find a way of saying it without saying it.

I fluffed off the guy who kept requesting tunes all night, then found out he was the King’s son.