To put your life in danger from time to time. . . breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.
It's better to finish at the peak or soon after it, than to wait until the audience notices a decline.
I realized pretty soon that I have to do more than just play bass in the background way. So, I developed a kind of playing which only a handful of musicians accepted.
When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.
I like to create the music I hear in my interior. As a conductor, you have the ability to squeeze the sounds and interpretation you asked for from 50 to 80 people.
There are always some doubts when you do a new album though. You wonder whether you succeeded or not, especially when you waited as long as I did for this one - seven years. You're never really sure if it will be a nice record or not.
On the other hand, I'm very tolerant as well. I expect that everybody can play what they want. I'm only not tolerant when it comes to myself and what is presented on my album that I have to listen to for the rest of my life.
As long as I'm sitting in the chair, there's not going to be any Jew appointed to that court. No Jew can be right on the criminal-law issue.
I don’t approve of religion.
Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness.
I'm 51. So I'm just saying, 30 years from now you're going to have a different outlook. That's what a midlife crisis is.