A first love always occupies a special place.
Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.
Out of Coltrane's whole history, there are things which I think are great from all the periods.
Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.
It's very demanding to make up your own music.
I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.
I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.
It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.
As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.
Sound is the first thing that we tune into.
A lot of bands were doing remotes from ballrooms around the country.
I wish that person outside would stop coughing.
Names and theoretical things don't occur to me. If they do, I'm not doing my real playing mode.
I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.
In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.
I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.
I hear many extra-musical things somehow in Coltrane.
After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.
We all learn from each other, and I never really hung out with guys in that way, so I missed out.
Many people do think it's naive to improvise in front of paying customers. I'm not saying one way is better than another.
