"Everybody starts with copying his idols. At first, mine were Davis and Desmond. Then Coleman and Coltrane apeeared on the scene and I knew this was what I wanted to do. Later I admired many other musicians, wanting my playing to approximate theirs namely technically. What I'm after now is rather to avoid virtuoso playing and showing off..."
 

"I, for one, don't practice playing scales but rather Baroque sonatas. I'm not sure whether I will ever use these progressions in my improvisations but I keep them as background, as inspiration. Take Albert Mangelsdorff, for example. We understand each other as musicians but his view is different from mine. He always wants his music to sound as "American" jazz. What I'm after is music per se, the atmosphere..."
 

"Jazz - especially when played by small ensembles - has its specific requirements. It is not enough just to play an instrument well, because what you've got to have is similar thinking, to be on the same bandwaggon so to speak..."
 


 
"The main thing is not so much to constantly search for a new sound, for unusual registers, overblown pitch, tones outside the regular pitch range of the instrument. Naturally, there is that something which always urges you to try out novel things, but what is essential - in other words music and music is what you must be after - can be perfectly rendered even within the regulatr "midstream" pitch, provided everything clicks in place as it should..."
 

"I like the sound of historical instruments and I also like old music..."
 

"I like any folk music. Folk music has possibilities that have become off-limits for professionals and this is why some people now return to folk music to rediscover them..."
 

"A perfectly rehearsed and harmonized band need not necessarily make music. This is but a technical aspekt of the whole thing. On the other hand, musicians who have eestablished rapport need not rehearse much and yet they can cook as hell. And theirs will be a music which is totally different from that in which everything is known beforehandand nothing can happen..."
"Really, what's most important is not so much the musical idiom but rather an artistic expression, be it achieved by any means: sound, silence, gesture, action, anything..."
 

"Using music, I conduct a dialogue with the listener about my own life's experience. There's folk and country music in it, a return to nature. I feel that the quinessence of all art is in honesty and in that everybody should do his own thing he deeply feels inside. Commercial attractiveness should only come second. If a piece reveals individuality and has a message to tell, then it's got a right to live..."
 

"Poeple always play all kinds of games and even their symbiosis is a play. And play as a short of co-playing is what I'm after in my concerts. I try to get the audience involved in the play..."
 

"If you don't want to be a soloist and wish to avoid problems arising from playing in an ensemble, you play in a duo. Two musicians can establish a better rapport than tree, much less four. The chemistry of understanding each other is best achieved in a duo..."
 

"In fact I don't even care too much with whom I play. I could even play with ten tuba players if I felt we understood each other..."