To do it always right, that is what music is to me.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Not with the Rochester Philharmonic, but I formed my own orchestra, made up of musicians from the Eastman School, where I'm on the faculty now, direct the Jazz Ensemble and teach improvisation classes.

The hiatus you spoke about happened in 1998. I was somewhat numb from being out on the road every night. I had to stop because I was emotionally and physically drained.

I have been recording for five decades now.

I made many studio albums and I think the danger of studio recording is that if you do not watch out, you come out with a perfectly sterile performance.

I write music people enjoy playing and listening to, and I have a group that loves playing the music.

To do it always right, that is what music is to me.

I was blessed to work with The Jazz Messengers when the two piano players were Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea.

Brazilian music has many of the ingredients that I strive for in my own music: Strong melodies and a disciplined but intense rhythmic concept, and interesting harmonies.

Then I loved the fact that we were actually recording live.

Music is meant to be a beautiful thing.

Because I don't believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from.

With four people you can create one very strong kind of energy, but if you can get 65 people working together, and swinging together, that's a whole other kind of energy.

We may play in a contemporary rock vein, use standard bebop themes, and many other things besides.

My music has always been strong in melodic content.

I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last ten years.

I tend to not want to put labels or categories on the music, only because people come with preconceived ideas about what they're going to hear, or won't come for this reason.

What's happened - in our country, anyhow - is that the young people have shied away from the formality of the concert hall, that tie - and - tails philharmonic image.

Whether it's string writing or whatever, I try to write for what each instrumentalist can do best.

To pay 60 musicians for rehearsal and performance is quite something, and I decided I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of situation financially again, unless somebody else was taking care of that end of it.

I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

I find it very difficult to compose when I'm not playing.

1972 was a year of many pleasant and rewarding experiences for me:

As for the symphonic activities... when I was a student at the Eastman School of Music, I became exposed to a lot more musical forms, elements, opportunities, and I fell in love with strings and their uses.

Most recently we've been working in concert situations rather than clubs. because there aren't too many rooms there like Ronnie Scott's, that are pure music rooms, where people come specifically to listen to music.

A studio recording is perfection, but emotion and passion come only when you turn on the machine and go for the groove. If you do that with no mistakes, it sounds beautiful.

Not compromising the music, but there is a way, by just showing the people that you're sincere and honest with what you're doing, and by talking to them.

My goal was never to sell many records.

In 1994, I started touring again and I recorded two albums for Chesky Jazz.

There's not much in the way of written-down arrangements - just things that Gerry and I have worked out, from playing spontaneously together and hanging on to whatever seems to fall in right.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.