Quote

We work so hard on our craft, and once we get out of Duke Ellington, there are not going to be people looking for technique. I worry about that a lot.

I have tons of jazz records: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis. I could go on and on.

I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era.

As time passed on, got to hear some players who were straight up funky, not just jazz. Nat Adderley, for instance - he's a funky trumpet player, so he was my man.

I'm not a big jazz fan.

I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.

The starting point of all great jazz has got to be format, a language that you can work within that, in some ways, is much tighter than the blues or even gospel. It's all working towards the same destination - the difference being that Miles Davis flew there, and I'm still taking the subway.

Ellington is a writer and arranger, as well as a musician and leader. He does movie sound tracks.