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.

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.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

We need to have a culture that says 'the less energy you can use to be comfortable, the better off you are and the better you should feel about yourself'.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

I didn't know at the time that the energy that I was giving off was like a battle Emcee.

The young people look great on television. They're youthful and have a lot of zip and energy, but when you see them live, they can only do about 20 minutes because they haven't got the training to hold an audience for an hour and a half or so.

It takes a lot more energy to fail than to succeed, since it takes a lot of concentrated energy to hold on to beliefs that don't work.

I try to give positive energy in all my shows.

In modelling, there is no point in trying to prove you have a brain, so why even bother? I'd sooner save the energy for something more meaningful.

I was part of it, and I am still part of it today in terms of what it means to a whole new generation of people who are interested in the enduring energy, achievements, spirit and creativity that exemplified our era.

I always like having kid energy around. I think it's good for a movie, even when you're doing dramatic stuff.

You had to decompress the pressure before the race. I taught my heart to relax. I lay down before the race. It gave me more energy just before the race.

As long as I had easy access to psychedelics at the government-sponsored research project, most of my energy went into psychedelic sessions.

You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.

Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that's when I get worried.

Electric cars aren't pollution-free; they have to get their energy from somewhere.

When I see someone who is starved, they don't look alert. They don't have boundless energy. If you're too skinny, it looks like you're near death.

Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy.