"I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves"

"Music is my religion"

"Music is the shorthand of emotion"

"My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary"

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away"

"Music is the universal language of mankind"

"All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff"

"I've always been into melodies. That's what I love about music – a good melody that gives you goosebumps"

"Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music"

"Jazz vision is the fusion of music and art a real paradox of same-yet different. Here we play in exchanges, like the hardness of the key of c# major and from the softness of Db major - capturing, reflecting and improvising"

"We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it"