Those clothes are worn and don't fit me anymore. I don't think like you and my music isn't meant just for the patting of feet and going down backs. When and if I feel gay and carefree, I write or play that way-or when I'm happy, or depressed, even. Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through jazz, or whatever.
Music is, or was, a language of the emotions.
If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music, and I would begin to worry about my writing if such a person began to really like it. My music is alive and it's about the living and the dead, about good and evil. I know you're making a comeback, Miles, and I'm with you more than you know. You're playing the greatest Miles I've ever heard, and I'm sure you already know that you're one of America's truly great jazz stylists. You read third trumpet on my California record dates 11 years ago on the recommendation of Lucky Thompson.