“My future starts when I wake up every morning.”

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.

Some musicians play with their heart, you know what I mean? I don’t know what to tell a person that can’t – if you can’t tell a person what you’re talkin’ about when they’re rushin’ or droppin’ the tempo, you get somebody else.

For me, music and life are all about style.

Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself.

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

If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.

Play what you know and then play above that

That was my gift having the ability to put certain guys together that would create a chemistry and then letting them go; letting them play what they knew, and above it.

I’ve always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that’s where great art and music happens.

He sounded to me like he’s supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.

You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.

At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.