If there was no black man there would be no Rock'n'Roll. The beat, the rhythms of Africa are what created Rock'n'Roll and Jazz.

Through all of history mankind has ingested psychedelic substances. Those substances exist to put you in touch with spirits beyond yourself, with the creator, with the creative impulse of the planet.

We went on stage with the Jefferson Airplane, Jim started singing with Grace Slick and hugging her. Then he danced off the stage, went back into the dressing room and passed out cold.

Alan Ginsberg was fabulous. The man is so filled with energy. He's 65 years old and he's just loaded with energy and charm and wit and his mind is constantly racing.

I'm basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good keyboard player. People think I think I'm good. I think I'm a very poor piano player.

I need three million dollars to make a low-budget, intellectual, artistic, exciting, erotic movie with a great soundtrack.

Drugs shouldn't be used for recreation although they can be, but ultimately the point of psychedelics is to put you in touch with the powers of the universe.

I thought we were gonna open up the world of poetry and music to all kinds of things, and yet, I can't really think of anyone who's done anything like it since.

The Doors were never that good as musicians.

Rock 'n' roll is like a circus today.

Movies were very important. The art-form of the 20th century.

Jim wanted to be known as a poet, first and foremost.

Jim, as just a spoken poet, was not that good. He needed the music behind him. He felt a security and a sense of abandon when the music existed around him.

The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice-cream cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now you're free.

I think I'm a very poor piano player.

The Doors movie is a pack of lies. It did not make money. You want to make money in America? Tell the truth.

The Doors were successful. It was Jim Morrison as the centre and the figure and the spokesman, the figurehead, but we were all into the same thing. That's why we were a band.

If there was no black man there would be no Rock'n'Roll. The beat, the rhythms of Africa are what created Rock'n'Roll and Jazz.

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.

I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

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.

Here in England we live at a slower pace, have more time to enjoy things - like good jazz.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don't think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact.

I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends.

One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?

I've gone the full spectrum - from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop - and the public has accepted what I've done through it all. I think it means I've been doing something right at the right time.