With four people you can create one very strong kind of energy, but if you can get 65 people working together, and swinging together, that's a whole other kind of energy.

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.

Music is meant to be a beautiful thing.

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.

The consumer is not a moron she is your wife.

A comedy is just a tragedy interrupted, I once said. Do you finish with the kiss or when she opens her eyes to tell him she loves him and sees blonde hairs on his collar?

It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing else can be so pretty! A cluster of vapor, the cream of the milky way, a sort of celestial cheese, churned into light.

All my life I have dreamed of you.

Great quarterbacks, good quarterbacks, make plays.

In every debate, whatever the format, whatever the questions, there is one and only one way to identify the winner: Who commands the room? Who drives the narrative? Who is in charge?

Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision. - On Dwight D. Eisenhower

I trust most people. Not producers.

My point is that death is more tragic than life, than any life, because every life has hope of some kind.

Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it.