“I just love to play and I get a chance to play with other musicians and I jump on it.”

“I'm being a dad and a good husband.”

“There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble.”

“I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.”

“Everybody's got a different sense of humor. It's just different styles.”

“There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. ”

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”

“Jazz is not just 'Well, man, this is what I feel like playing.' It's a very structured thing that comes down from a tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.”