"I started as an arranger first. That's how I became a producer," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. "It's a path you go through as an arranger that opens up a lot of doors of understanding. You work with all kinds of different people from Dinah Washington and Billy Eckstine, Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Sinatra, Aretha [Franklin], Sarah [Vaughan], Ella [Fitzgerald], and Carmen McRae. You learn so much from that school."
"That school doesn't exist now, so it's hard for them to understand what that gives you. Seven hundred miles a night for years. Traveling on that band bus. Seventy gigs in just the Carolinas. Twenty-seven in California. Everywhere. It's ridiculous. And get stranded with a big band in Europe, and some sucker is gonna come talk to me about sellin' out. Please. Give me a break. Yo mama!"
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