Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.
After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it’s worse than ever.
A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer – you put a great song on top of that, you’re really in great shape!
I never felt like I had a mother.
I don’t remember feeling love.
China’s got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain’t right.
Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important.
Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.
You have to know that your real home is within.
My son is a hip-hop producer.
It’s the attitude about life, man. Looking at the light instead of the dark. Looking at love instead of fear.
When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out.
I’m a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from.
I’d been in love before – I was always in love.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe.
I was married for 36 years but now I’m free.
My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade.
If I don’t have a mother, I’ll let music be my mother.
A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that’s the bottom line.
Well, listen, anger doesn’t get anything done, so you have to find out: How do you make it work? That’s why I was always maniacal about transforming every problem into a puzzle which I can solve. I can solve a puzzle – a problem just stresses me out.