Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn't take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren't interested in it.

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.

Amsterdam must have more than a million people. But the only area where jazz is really profitable and successful in an economic sense is in Japan. That's because they haven't been exposed enough.

Sponsors and networks will really go all out and simply evaluate people on the basis of talent.

Jazz is America's own. It is played and listened to by all peoples - in harmony together. Pigmentation differences have no place... as in genuine democracy, only performance counts.

If you don't get substantially what you want, be ready to walk. And don't look back.

There are very few groups that really stay together. The leaders of groups make enough money to be able to afford to work a maximum of 35-40 weeks a year.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

The whole reason for Jazz at the Philharmonic was to take it to places where I could break down segregation.

I don't imagine book elitists as my audience when writing. I dream about teachers, morticians and garbage men instead.

Undying love, attention and sacrifice is an essential fuel for relations

My lover is experiencing reverse evolution.

Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away.

Of course one should not drink much, but often.

I would like to be like Britney, but maybe better. But I don't wanna outshine her.

I wanted to write songs that would play themselves on stage, songs that sweep you through their current.

When you're riding a bike you're more connected to the outdoors and to other people than you are when you are stuck in your car.

Shakespeare speaks for the human heart but Dickens speaks for the social man and for injustices.

Aerosmith's 'Rocks' is on the list of my top favorite albums of all time.