“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

I do believe that my whole success goes back to that time I was arrested as a wayward boy at the age of thirteen. Because then I had to quit running around and began to learn something. Most of all, I began to learn music.

I warm up at home. I hit the stage, I’m ready, whether it’s rehearsal or anything.

What we play is life.

I was determined to play my horn against all odds, and I had to sacrifice a whole lot of pleasure to do so.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.

Well, I tell you. the first chorus, I plays the melody. The second chorus, I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus, I routines.

There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.

Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

I never want to be anything more than I am; what I don’t have, I don’t need.

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.

The first time I heard Jack Teagarden on the trombone, I had goose pimples all over.

Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.