"There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play which is dangerously where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before."
"I never wanted this kind of life that I'm still living."
"My dream was to have a steady job, was not to be on the road, to exist like a guy that goes to work as a mechanic or a carpenter and knows he's gonna have a job."
"No person in their right mind would want to put their family through what I've had to put my family through."
"It's Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, you know. They got a musical mind together and uh, you can't explain it."
"I prefer no one to teach me. I prefer to swing on my own."
"Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it."
"It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me."
"And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into."
"There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play which is dangerously where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before."