redefined swing for modern jazz pianists for the latter half of the 20th century up until today. I consider him to be the major influence that formed… - Herbie Hancock

We all have natural human tendency to take the safe route—to do the thing we know will work—rather than taking a chance. But that's the antithesis of jazz, which is all about being in the present. Jazz is about being in the moment, at every moment. It's about trusting yourself to respond on the fly. If you can allow yourself to do that, you never stop exploring, you never stop learning, in music or in life.

[B]y the time I actually heard , I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on – just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... he and Bill Evans, and and , finally. You know, that's where it came from.

I didn't know whether Wayne was crazy or a genius. I knew something was there, but I couldn't get a handle on it. We were playing some club outside of Boston. After the gig, I got a bottle of cognac and went back to his hotel room and we drank. And we talked for hours. And I began to see that there were word games that Wayne would play. His whole approach was much more like poetry, if anything, than how we normally perceive standard conversation. His way of speaking was on a much higher plane. I did come to the conclusion that he was a genius, not crazy.