" I love jazz drummers… Can't think of one I don't like. Some of them hold their sticks weird, and don't care about the latest drumming fads. They love the tradition, and the language. They just...Swing! "
"Why play one way all the time? I like to play what the band is playing. I can slip In and out of all those things. What's the big deal? It’s not that hard to do. "
"Here is an old Be Bop expression…’Throwing anchors up hill’. That’s a guy taking a solo and not cutting it. He’s not funky, and he not swingin’. He isn't connecting; but is looking around as if to blame the band… But we all know what’s up but him. "
"From Junior high until about age twenty-five, I was trying to cop Philly, Art, and Max…Then Elvin and Tony became popular. So, in order to work you had to have some type of an answer for that. Then, in order to make rent, I played blues and funk. Now my style is in between all of that stuff."
"In the 1950s and 60s I played jazz to make a living. Rock gigs hadn’t started yet, but you could get work playing soul and blues… But mostly we played jazz. This lasted for me until The Headhunters, and the fusion thing started. It was no longer a nice piano trio in a club for a year like when I was young. The good news was there were plenty of organ lounges, so I got a lot of work doing that."
"Past present and future not different…I never quite got this, but have thought about it from many angles."
"Maybe the coffee is extra good this morning but most people who know me realize - I could have been a great leader for the free world but instead, I became a drummer!!"