Circumstances can be very important. Find the right people to work with..

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited..

I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed..

It starts with a single sound. If there's something in that sound, then it's worth continuing..

If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up..

Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work..

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz..

If you listen to Louis Armstrong from 1929, you will never hear anything better than that really, and you will never hear anything more free than tha….

The more original something is, the more of a threat it seems until the people catch up with it. That happened with Thelonious Monk. It happened with….

Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk..

A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedi….

Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same..

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds..

Whoever has an original thing to say, it is sort of a threat to the status quo..

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others..

It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up..

The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach….

Jazz is people's music, a collectivity..

Bamboo is not a weed, it's a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant..

I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone..

When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly..