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" I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever. "

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" You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good. "

" Circumstances can be very important. Find the right people to work with. "

" When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all. "

" I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone. "

" I was spoiled by Monk's music because it was so good, so complete. "

" To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration. "

" The potential for the saxophone is unlimited. "

" You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use. "

" Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk. "

" Saxophone is one thing, and music is another. "

" I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination. "

" People don't want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately, and this is one of the biggest problems in the world. "

" Kenny G, I have to be grateful to him for proving that the instrument can be played all different kinds of ways. "

" They call me before they go into production, when they have a prototype, and they call legitimate saxophonists, too. As opposed to the other kind. "

" I've always been extremely lucky in playing with great people who knew much more than I did. That's how I got from there to here. "

" Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same. "

" I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed. "

" The soprano turned out to sound to me like the right hand on the piano. "

" You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others. "

" If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up. "

" Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work. "

" If you have music you want to play that no one asks you to play, you have to go out and find where you can play it. It's called do or die. "

" When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now. "

" Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register. "

" I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz. "

" What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged. "

" It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up. "

" The more original something is, the more of a threat it seems until the people catch up with it. That happened with Thelonious Monk. It happened with anybody who is really original. "

" The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach the baritone in intensity. "

" Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention. "