“Actual playing experience on the job is the best way to learn to think. Improvising is playing with a lot of thought behind it; but none of the hard work that goes into thinking should show up in your playing. Too often improvising is really copying. To really improvise, a musician needs to know everything not only his instrument, but harmony, composition, theory, the whole works. It’s more important than ever today. (“Today” being 1960).

“When you don’t have control (of your instrument), you can’t incorporate the ideas that you hear and feel into your style. That’s what’s wrong with so many of the players coming up today”.

“Sure…. I was advanced for my time in those early days, for just that reason – I had studied hard since I was five, and studied classics all my life, and it gives me an advantage over the other fellows I was playing with”.

Excerpt from the sleeve notes on this release.