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1. When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.
2. 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.
3. I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.
4. So I played alto for quite a while until I saved up the money for the baritone.
5. New York is still where I live most of the time.
6. The recording industry has changed; they’re enjoying such incredible success in the pop field.
7. Actually, it is a fact that I’ve been doing more writing than playing in recent years.
8. I’m fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.
9. If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.
10. You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.
11. I’ve appeared on some other people’s albums.
12. Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.
13. Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.
14. I’ve always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.
15. This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it’s very hard to bear.
16. The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.
17. 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.
18. People are approaching electronic levels in music; although not all of it happens to tickle my fancy.
19. 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.
20. It’s true I’ve always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.