If I think about the way I was drawn into the music, it was much more by recordings than by live performances.

I've been to the studio several times, and it's not that I'm not happy with what I've got, but each time I come away, I feel that I've learned something that I want to work on.

Improvisation is a compositional method.

There are many of these apparent philosophical paradoxes or contradictions which don't concern me anymore.

I think it's a great document of John Stevens' originality. At that time he was already much more fully formed in his conception than I was. I was sort of struggling to keep up, and sometimes it's pretty obvious.

In a certain sense, aspects of my solo playing were developed in order to test the theory about how long particular elements could be, as parts of so-called free improvisations.

I think the solo playing, the decision to start playing solo, came out of having discovered what lay behind the doors that that technique opened for me.

You know, the whole philosophy of ad hoc combinations has its strengths and its weaknesses.

The argument we always used to use was that keeping records in the catalog was good for people that were coming new to the music, but I think that was talking over a ten year or fifteen year time span.

But I think the record will actually come from tapes that are not yet recorded.

It's not like, I don't know, if Madonna has a new record out, then everybody from Bangkok to Birmingham knows what its called and can buy it the same week. But our stuff is not in that mass market.

Certain kinds of speed, flow, intensity, density of attacks, density of interaction... Music that concentrates on those qualities is, I think, easier achieved by free improvisation between people sharing a common attitude, a common language.

To speak about notation as the only way that you can guarantee structure of course is already very suspect.

So in the sense that we were all dealing with that freer approach, yes, it was certainly one of the first contacts, perhaps the first contact, when Peter came that summer. So it's a very pivotal moment that is documented there.

Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days.

A kind of synthesis, but with some elements that perhaps you wouldn't have expected in advance. I always like that when that happens, when something comes that is more than the sum of the parts.

I think the voice does that perfectly adequately without being imitated by other instruments.

There's an institution here called the National Sound Archive, and there's a character who works there, Paul Wilson. He takes a very special interest in the history of the music and advised Martin Davidson of the existence of these tapes.

If I think about the way I was drawn into the music, it was much more by recordings than by live performances.

So I'm looking to the saxophone as a resource which has its own unique set of possibilities. I'm looking to exploit them and develop them and have the fullest range of possibilities of the saxophone be known.

I think the whole question of meaning in music is difficult enough even if you hear me playing live right now in the same room! What I mean and what you take from it may be two quite different things anyway.

Those early steps are very important in understanding the evolution. But in themselves, maybe now you need the later records to understand the significance of the earlier records!

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.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them, just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

We used to listen to all the marvelous operas on records. Music was a very important part of our lives.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.