In the middle 1940s... I heard everyone live. Painting, the theater everything was happening. It was an exciting time when New York was the place to be.

I have no distributor... it is indicative to me that there are these pockets of players and collectors all over. You should see the correspondence I get from over the world letting me know how significant they think I am. I know that wherever I go, I am well received.

The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.

I think people who sample are cheating. It is like people who do collages. Use all of your own stuff.

Rock musicians, and a vast array of popular-music musicians, due to their wealth, acquired through the mass of their notoriety, are able to be listened to and heard and thus are able to effect change on an international level.

Whatever I do, I attempt to do it fully. I try, and don't always succeed, to be thorough. There are musicians who do not know their worth, and if they knew it at one time, it has eluded them. I know my worth. You try not to dwell in the past.

If I produce it, I will stage it as a performance. A small audience will be invited rehearsals of the sections will be done in the mornings, and those sections will be recorded in the afternoons.

Fear is the biggest motivator.

I have been using delay and reverberation since the middle 1960s. I use them to make what is almost inaudible to the ear, audible. I do not use them to play loudly but to make the higher harmonics heard.

I do not, as a rule, do encores. When I have finished playing, I have indeed finished playing. I have nothing left there has been no reserve.

If I had money, I would like to get an old building, have music performances, do lithographs, have shows of paintings, and do those things that I'm interested in doing.

Most of my recorded material has been in small group configurations. I have not released large orchestral works as recordings because it hasn't been within the realm of possibility.