Gerry mulligan

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it's the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what's available, what somebody happens to play for you.

Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.

People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

If you've only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.

Actually, it is a fact that I've been doing more writing than playing in recent years.

When we've finished the current tour I'm going to go back to Italy and see if I can do some more writing.

The recording industry has changed; they're enjoying such incredible success in the pop field.

The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.