A lot of players do listen to the bass, but most guys listen more, say, to the drums.
Actually, it is a fact that I've been doing more writing than playing in recent years.
Actually, when I was very young, first starting to play, I think I probably listened more to clarinet players than to saxophones.
And the other thing we do: we periodically have softball games with the band, because they're all baseball nuts that helps to keep the spirit alive.
Because if you've got the wit, you can make anything into a melody, ultimately.
But it's been kind of a sequence of events you know those sorts of things: you meet people and things happen, without thinking about it.
Eliminating the piano means that I've always worked closer with the bass than most players.
I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.
I really never thought that I would write for the orchestra - I didn't feel like I could do it.
I started on clarinet, actually, and the next instrument I wanted was a baritone.
I would think, of all the saxophones, the baritone would be the most logical instrument if anybody was adding a voice to the symphony orchestra.
I'm fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.
I've always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.
I've appeared on some other people's albums.
If you've only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.
In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.
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.
It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.
Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.
New York is still where I live most of the time.
Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.
One of the drawbacks is always having a minimal amount of rehearsal time it's a great luxury, being so expensive.
Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.
People are approaching electronic levels in music; although not all of it happens to tickle my fancy.
People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time.
So I played alto for quite a while until I saved up the money for the baritone.
Take Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster - they're not Dixieland players at all; but what they are, what they have a sense of, is the ensemble player.
The baritone can serve functions that the alto and tenor cannot, in orchestral voicing.
The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.
The other saxophones, except as solo instruments, really don't have much point in the orchestra.
The recording industry has changed; they're enjoying such incredible success in the pop field.
The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.
Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.
This life of being a transient human being has gotten to a point when it's very hard to bear.
When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.
When we've finished the current tour I'm going to go back to Italy and see if I can do some more writing.
Yes - I love to write for the orchestra.
Yes you know, some years I do a lot of dates and a world tour with the big band; and then the next year we'll probably only do a handful of dates.
You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.
You start way down on a low B flat on the tuba and you have a chromatic scale; you can match the colours all the way up, till you get to the top of the trumpet.
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