What's interesting about a person without problems?

I still prefer the bebop of the '40s. The very stuff I started out with is still the best to me. I have come full circle.

When you are studying jazz, the best thing to do is listen to records or listen to live music. It isn't as though you go to a teacher. You just listen as much as you can and absorb everything.

I like chords that are very lush with all the lush parts taken out.

Listening is more important than anything else because that's what music is. Somebody is playing something and you're receiving it. It is sending and receiving.

When Ronald Reagan was elected I was on a bus traveling with a band in France. I wrote a little arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner in a minor key.

I dont enjoy traveling in America. I dont like the food, the cars. It is not exotic enough. It all tastes a bit like airline food.

Living composers writing for big band are very few and far between. There are not a lot of them, and I have a talent for doing it. I am zeroing in on what I do best.

Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker seemed so sophisticated and bad. I wanted to be like that.

One performer whose band played my music better than I could myself was Art Farmer. He recorded 'Sing Me Softly of the Blues' and 'Ad Infinitum'.

I just got to hear every note. After I left Birdland, I started working at the Jazz Gallery. In the end, I still couldn't play, but I knew how to listen. I was probably the world's best listener.

No one can long worship God in spirit and in truth before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist.

I provide a little comic relief.

Every great work of art ... is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.

It is difficult for the united states to be all of equal power and extent.

For the first time since life appeared on earth, one species- us- is single-handedly altering the physical, chemical and biological nature of earth. We have become a force of nature

It is ridiculous to take on a man's job just in order to be able to say that 'a woman has done it - yah!' The only decent reason for tackling a job is that it is your job and you want to do it.

I've been to Cardiff a few times but I'd love to get to Wembley. My son is six or seven years old and I'd love to take him to Wembley to watch Liverpool.

I enjoy both comedy and drama, and have had memorable experiences in both film and T.V.

I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust and apologize to people.

If you could avoid all your mistakes, you'd miss everything you learned from them.