It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.

The recording industry has changed; they're enjoying such incredible success in the pop field.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

If you've only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

The other saxophones, except as solo instruments, really don't have much point in the orchestra.

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.

I've appeared on some other people's albums.

So I played alto for quite a while until I saved up the money for the baritone.

I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.

Actually, it is a fact that I've been doing more writing than playing in recent years.

This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it's very hard to bear.

In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.

People are approaching electronic levels in music; although not all of it happens to tickle my fancy.

Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.

I'm fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.

When we've finished the current tour I'm going to go back to Italy and see if I can do some more writing.

Eliminating the piano means that I've always worked closer with the bass than most players.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

New York is still where I live most of the time.

Because if you've got the wit, you can make anything into a melody, ultimately.

People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time.

The baritone can serve functions that the alto and tenor cannot, in orchestral voicing.

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it's the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what's available, what somebody happens to play for you.

The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.

You start way down on a low B flat on the tuba and you have a chromatic scale; you can match the colours all the way up, till you get to the top of the trumpet.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.

It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

I've always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.

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.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.