What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.
Because if you've got the wit, you can make anything into a melody, ultimately.
It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.
You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it
Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.
So I played alto for quite a while until I saved up the money for the baritone
The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.
Life on the road is murder. It's as though life begins and ends when you have your horn in your mouth.
This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it's very hard to bear
I'm fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.
In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.
People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time
You start way down on a low B flat on the tuba and you have a chromatic scale; you can match the colours all the way up, till you get to the top of the trumpet.
Eliminating the piano means that I've always worked closer with the bass than most players.
When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins
Actually, when I was very young, first starting to play, I think I probably listened more to clarinet players than to saxophones.
Actually, it is a fact that I've been doing more writing than playing in recent years.
When [Billy] Strayhorn came on the scene, he just blew us away.
The recording industry has changed; they're enjoying such incredible success in the pop field
A very talented player and all around excellent musician. I love hearing his records on radio!
The baritone can serve functions that the alto and tenor cannot, in orchestral voicing
The other saxophones, except as solo instruments, really don't have much point in the orchestra
Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra
I would think, of all the saxophones, the baritone would be the most logical instrument if anybody was adding a voice to the symphony orchestra.
If you've only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.
