I've Got A Collection Of Songs That

I Always Felt That I Was Born In The Wrong Era. I Wanted To Be Friends With John Garfield, For Instance. He Was One Of The Only Actors That Refused To Testify In Front Of The House Un-american Activities Committee Back When The Hollywood Ten Blacklist Was Happening In The Mccarthy Period. I Wish I Could've Been Friends With Charlie Parker And Played With Him. That's My Period. I Feel Real Close To The '40s - And Actually I Was Born In '37, So I Was A Kid Singing On The Radio In The '40s. But I Always Dreamed Of Going To Big Cities.

It Used To Be That Creative Music Was Most Of The Music That You Heard Back In The '30s And '40s, And Now It's Like 3 Percent. So, Its Kind Of A Struggle Getttin' It Out There.

I've Got A Collection Of Songs That I've Had, I Keep Adding To And They're All Great American Composers. I Wanted To Showcase American Composers And I've Done That On A Lot Of My Records And Played Things By American Composers That I Really Respect.

I Always Told The People At Cal Arts That If They Wanted Me To Do Jazz Studies, First Of All, There Couldn't Be A Big Band Within 500 Miles And That I Could Do What I Wanted To Do. And They Said I Could.

The Artist Is Very Lucky, Because In An Art Form That's Spontaneous Like Jazz, That's When You Really See Your True Self. And That's Why, When I Put Down My Instrument, That's When The Challenge Starts, Because To Learn How To Be That Kind Of Human Being At That Level That You Are When You're Playing - That's The Key, That's The Hard Part.