Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.

When we've finished the current tour I'm going to go back to Italy and see if I can do some more writing.

This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it's very hard to bear.

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.

People just expect you to show up, be a cartoon character of yourself, take your money and go home. But don't screw up to the point where you're gonna be out of the picture.

When I was 23, I went backpacking around Australia for three months. I saved up a few grand, quit my job and flew to Sydney, then went to Melbourne and up the East Coast, which was an incredible experience. I remember running out of money and getting my mum to send me a few hundred quid, which helped me get by.

As Americans, we're raised with this idea of, 'We're number one.' As an individual, you absorb and you consume until you skyrocket to the top with your money and your whatever. That's not my philosophy. My philosophy is quite the opposite in that there's limited space, we have limited resources, and so it's not about the individual.

My Scottish grandfather, John W. Blyth, was a man addicted to paintings. A manufacturer of linen, he spent all his surplus money on pictures.