"Their eagerness for the big-band music and their ability to grasp the essence of it made me realize that today's generation has not been properly exposed to the big-band sound."

"Hamp would ask me about tempos in the band: 'Jacquet,' he'd say, 'knock off that tempo.' A lot of jazz musicians didn't prefer to play for dancers, which was their loss, really. But good jazz has always had that dance feel."

"When I got my band in 1983, I knew what I had to do. If I'm going to have a big band, they're going to have to sound equally as good as what I'm used to hearing."

"The patterns of big-band music are smooth and classical. It's got to be fresh. The brass section should crackle, like the sound of eggs being dropped into hot grease."

"Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying, “I love you.”"

"When I get in the car I love my wife and kids more than anything, but I'm not thinking about that side of things. I'm thinking about the car, I'm thinking about the race and I'm thinking about how to make the car faster."

"You can only really open yourself up so far to someone that you don't truly love - you keep something back when you know somewhere in your gut that this relationship is going to be forever."

"If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us."