Music is meant to be a beautiful thing.

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.

I write music people enjoy playing and listening to, and I have a group that loves playing the music.

I tend to not want to put labels or categories on the music, only because people come with preconceived ideas about what they're going to hear, or won't come for this reason.

I was blessed to work with The Jazz Messengers when the two piano players were Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea.

A studio recording is perfection, but emotion and passion come only when you turn on the machine and go for the groove. If you do that with no mistakes, it sounds beautiful.

Whether it's string writing or whatever, I try to write for what each instrumentalist can do best.

I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

1972 was a year of many pleasant and rewarding experiences for me

Brazilian music has many of the ingredients that I strive for in my own music: Strong melodies and a disciplined but intense rhythmic concept, and interesting harmonies.

In 1994, I started touring again and I recorded two albums for Chesky Jazz.

A seminary professor I once knew told his students, “Never preach about hell without tears in your eyes.

In the world of primitive savages, religion and bigotry go hand in hand. But, in the world of civilized humans, religion and reason must go hand in hand.

It is hard to die unmourned.

I'm the only American alive or dead who presided unhappily over the removal of a vice president and a president.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer.

It's such a diversion to be constantly thinking of better ways I can teach people math that my hunger is for that really, for new ways of translating the beauty of it.

What's a friend for if not to face almost certain death with, eh?

On first blush, Hold 'em seems like a ridiculously simple game.

Now, aged 50, I'm just poised to shoot forth quite free straight and undeflected my bolts whatever they are.