“You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.”

Some day I’m gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up.

Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.

In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

If I hear a song like “Time After Time.” I’m sittin’ there lookin’ at video and Cindy Lauper comes on singin’ this song. I said, “God damnnnnn!”

Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.

[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

It takes you years to learn how to play like yourself.

It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.

You can’t eat a winner’s plaque.

Bebop didn’t have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn’t even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging – but they weren’t sweet.

If you understood everything I say, you’d be me!

What’s swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don’t have to ask anybody if that’s good music or not. You can always feel it.

I think every Negro over fifty should get a medal for putting up with all that crap.

With “We Are The World,” I can’t even eat when I watch that on television. If I’m eatin’ some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.

Music is the framework around the silence.