When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they’re still here and passing it on to others.
It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?
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.
I usually write from the rhythm section…If a drummer got a funky beat on some things – like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that’s even – I can write something.
