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" I never cared about money or fame, and I don't care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows. "

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" When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you're talking about. Thank God I was ready for it. "

" I'd been in love before - I was always in love. "

" It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play. "

" Seattle is like a global gumbo, a melting pot with all kinds of people - the rich, the poor, white people, some Chinese, Filipino, Jewish and black people - they're all here. "

" I was married for 36 years but now I'm free. "

" I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe. "

" Everybody has their idiosyncrasies. "

" I live on the Internet. "

" Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know? "

" Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That's the soul of a country. "

" To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft. "

" 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. "

" We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too. "

Black And White

" My son is a hip-hop producer. "

" I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens. "

" I'm a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap. "

" Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing. "

" It slaps your dignity just right. I loved the idea of these proud, dignified black men, and I saw the older ones wounded, and it wounded me ten times as much because I couldn't stand seeing them hurt like this. "

" China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right. "

" I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me. "

" You make your mistakes to learn how to get to the good stuff. "

" 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. "

" The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious. "

" When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray Charles. That's the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older. "

" Everybody, no matter what vocation they're looking at, should add music as an essential to their curriculum. Music can be a very important part of your soul and your growth as a human being. It's so powerful. "

" I never felt like I had a mother. "

" I've met every freak in the business. "

" I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything. "

" You cannot get an A if you're afraid of getting an F. "

" I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.' "