I Never Consciously Tried To Conceive Of

My Life Is Music, And In Some Vague, Mysterious And Subconscious Way, I Have Always Been Driven By A Taut Inner Spring Which Has Propelled Me To Almost Compulsively Reach For Perfection In Music, Often - In Fact, Mostly - At The Expense Of Everything Else In My Life.

The Saxophone Is An Imperfect Instrument, Especially The Tenor And Soprano, As Far As Intonation Goes. The Challenge Is To Sing On An Imperfect Instrument That Is Outside Of Your Body.

I Never Consciously Tried To Conceive Of What My Sound Should Be...i Never Tried To Imitate Anybody, But When You Love Somebody's Music, You're Influenced...i Really Don't Know How I Developed My Sound, But It Comes From A Combination Of My Musical Conception And No Doubt The Basic Shape Of The Oral Cavity.

When I Got This Saxophone, It Became A Religion. There Wasn't Tv, There Wasn't Much Money, And There Was Just A Real Dedication.... I Never Thought Of It As An Art. It Was Just Work That I Loved. Not Just Work, But Work That I Loved. I Loved It So Much, I Would Play It If Nobody Listened To It. Any Jazz Musician, If There's Nobody Around To Listen, Would Play Just For The Sheer Joy Of Improvising Music.

Life Is Too Full Of Distractions Nowadays. When I Was A Kid We Had A Little Emerson Radio And That Was It. We Were More Dedicated. We Didn't Have A Choice.