It's Taken Me All My Life To

I Try To Play The Bare Essence, To Let Everything Be Just What It's Supposed To Be.

I Was Blessed That I Got Married Early And Had A Good Wife. That Sort Of Kept Me Straight. Probably I Would Have Been Like Charlie Parker, You Know, Involved In Drugs Or Alcohol Or Something Like That If I Hadn't Had This Stability.

I Used To Do A Lot Of Apologizing For What The State Department Had Done.

I Think The Idea Is Now For Blacks To Write About The History Of Our Music. It's Time For That, Because Whites Have Been Doing It All The Time. It's Time For Us To Do It Ourselves And Tell It Like It Is.

You Can't Steal A Gift. Bird [charlie Parker] Gave The World His Music, And If You Can Hear It You Can Have It.