I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

God breathes through us so completely... so gently we hardly feel it... yet, it is our everything.

Unless I've got Katy Perry on the cover of my CD, it's going to be tough to sell a lot of records.

Music has many uses and I think the most perfected use that music has is one of a healing quality.

Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention.

I would like for people to appreciate the album musically whether they knew how it was made or not.

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

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

It's up to the person who's being creative to find ways to emerge and shake up the world of wealth.

I became bitter, hard, cold. I was always on a panic - couldn't buy clothes or a good place to live.

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

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

I feel that L.A. has not always been my strongest base for support. That can be for various reasons.

I had a 10-year heroin habit and kicked that. Then I became an alcoholic. I drank two fifth's a day.

It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play

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

What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years.

Hearing myself so much all the time, I don't think I sound that special all the time because it's me.

I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is in thinking of what to play.

You're like the girl who left her shadow in the drawer, but when she went to get it, it wasn't there.

I kept thinking there's bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

Never had a ska phase, but I was in a very grunge-like rock band that awkwardly had an alto sax in it.

Life on the road is murder. It's as though life begins and ends when you have your horn in your mouth.

If you go to Tiananmen Square, or go to any public area in China, you will hear my music at some point.

Gord Downie is extraordinary. It's safe to say there's nobody like that guy that I've ever come across.

Jazz is like wine. When it is new it's only for the experts, but when it gets older everybody wants it.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

Music is my religion. Music is the only thing that has never failed me. People let you down, music won't.

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

He has turned defensive boxing into a poetic art. Trouble is, nobody ever knocked anybody out with a poem.

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

I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.

Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

You know, being America, being the land of "number ones", everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.

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

For me, being an innovator doesn't mean being more intelligent, more rich, it's not a word, it's an action.

I've always regretted the fact that I've never formally studied and learned the mechanics of writing music.

I think that one of the problems that jazz has is that it's so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

I always think of music as interior decoration. So, if you have all kinds of music, you are fully decorated!

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

There is not a sentence in the world that could respectfully do justice to the life and music of Jerry Garcia.

I keep reverting (to Duke Ellington), he to me is the greatest ever and my favorite jazz philosopher, as such.

I think that those elements - light and sound - are beyond democratic. They're into the creative part of life.

There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.

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