“I like to play things that people understand, or maybe tunes that they could recognize. And so — I play for the people, just as much as for myself. Because, as I say, I still like to play.”

I used to live at the Cecil Hotel, which was next door to Minton’s [Playhouse]. We used to jam just about every night when we were off. Lester [Young], Don Byas and myself – we would meet there all the time and like, exchange ideas. It wasn’t a battle, or anything.

I’ve been back in New York a year and a half now. Before that I was on the West Coast for five years.

If you try all different styles that are in vogue, I think you con yourself. Me, I just stick by my guns; I don’t want to play out of another man’s bag.

I dont listen to my own records a lot. Once in a while – to check out my mistakes. Because you can always see a spot or two in the record where you could have done better. So you more or less study this way.

I don’t want to play out of another man’s bag.

There’s no comparison between the two. You hear things in New York you don’t hear anywhere else. Unless these guys go out. Quite a few make it out to the Coast. Of course, you can’t stay in New York for ever. You have to move.

Like every other place, I guess, Kansas City was quite a different city when I was a youngster there. They had quite a few clubs, and we had what we used to call jam sessions every night.

Tune your television to any channel it doesn’t receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.

For a person as obsessed with music as I am, I always hear a song in the back of my head, all the time, and that usually is my own tune. I’ve done that all my life.

INNATE is God in human beings. INNATE is good in human beings. INNATE cannot be cheated, violated, or tricked. INNATE is always waiting, ready to communicate with you, and when INNATE is in contact you are in tune with the Infinite.

While the accompanimental [sic] figures come from Prelude, the melody is wholly original to this theme. First stated on a lonely duduk, and then in octaves by the violins and violas, it is a melancholy and contemplative tune.

The solution to depression, among other things, is to go within and see if you can tune into more of what might want to come forth out of you.

I would like to sing the theme tune of a big film – something like ‘Titanic’.