I always listen to what I can leave out.
I began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each other, were true because Bach had also composed that way.
In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.
You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.
To keep creating you have to be about change.
Play what you know and then play above that.
You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.
Food makes my mind sluggish.
In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
I still got my Ferrari.
Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
I’m out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I’m still playing.
Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
We’re not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got ’em, so they can keep ’em.
You have to be born with it. You can’t even buy it. If you could buy it, they’d have it at the next Newport Festival.
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.
Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
As long as I’ve been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
I was minding my own business when something says to me, “you ought to blow trumpet.” I have just been trying ever since.