Jazz Musicians

"Clare Fischer is my friend. He’s not only a great musician and an exciting performer, but is an excellent composer and arranger. He’s bi-lingual and can bore you to tears on any subject from medicine and astronomy to politics and world history. I try to avoid all of these in favor of theology (about which he knows more than some preachers in my acquaintance). Since Clare assists me in my choir clinics, we travel by plane together a lot, so we talk about theology a lot (and occasionally disagree a lot)."

"My “super idol” (since the time in the early ‘50s when we played together in dance bands in Northern Indiana at various summer resorts) is Clare Fischer. The consistent, high quality of his work sets him apart. For me, his command of melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation and “LINE” is unequaled – he is my present-day Bach!"

"We went down and got a six-pack of beer, and we're coming back in the van – back to the concert site – and all of a sudden, Clare said, "Oh, look! There's a Jack in the Box! And we went... "So?... We just ate prime rib, dessert and all; and you say, 'There's a Jack in the Box'??!!!" Well, Rob was drivin', I was ridin' shotgun, and Clare was sittin' in the middle... and he said--he said "Pull in there quick! Pull in there." You gotta be kidding! We pulled in there. He got into the Jack in the Box line. "What do you want from here?" He goes, "I want.." Oh no, first he goes, "Do you guys want anything? You want anything?" We said, "Clare, we just ate a prime rib dinner! We just want our beer, ya know? And he goes, "OK... Give me seven apple turnovers." Seven apple turnovers from Jack in the box! They gave him seven apple turnovers. We took off, and there's a bag down here, and I'm shaking my head. "This guy wants seven apple turnovers!" We took off, and he immediately started eating two of them, fast. I'm lookin' at 'im, and sayin', "Damn!" And then Rob Fisher looks at me and says, "What the heck. I guess I'll get one." As soon as he put his hand in the bag, Clare grabbed his hand! He said, "Those are mine! I asked you guys if you wanted anything. I would buy you anything! Those are MINE. Stay away from them!""

"One of the things I liked about Los Angeles was that Clare Fischer, the arranger, used to organize something called the piano club.✱ It was an informal group of pianists, and we would meet at someone's house and discuss what was going on in the world of jazz piano. It became a good meeting point for all types of pianists, and as well as Clare, I remember meeting other players such as Joe Sample at those get-togethers. It was felt by some of those who attended that Clare had originally organized it as something of a shopwindow for his own talents as a player and arranger, but in fact the diversity of those who showed up took the spotlight off any one individual and we could really home in on pianistic ideas."

"Rule #2: In general, the higher notes of the basic chord structure (the 9th 11th, and 13th) should be placed somewhat higher in the voicing than the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. There are many exceptions to this rule, and at least one highly respected jazz pianist, Clare Fischer, develops his unusual harmonic colors specifically by violating it."

"He is a master of thematic development. Like some of the masters of the Classical and Romantic periods of music history, I’ve seen Clare ask for a theme from an audience, then proceed to spontaneously render endless variations on that theme, at the piano, in the manner of a performance. Listen, for example, to his awesome nine and one-half minute performance of Yesterdays (from the album, Alone Together at the Brunner-Schwer Steinway), treated like a theme and variations form, taking it through several keys, in 4/4 and in 3/4, changes of tempo, and several different styles."

"By the time "Sonando" came around, I had already had a few friendly arguments with Clare Fischer about "Poncho" and "Straight Ahead," regarding my approach and style. Clare Fischer is a genius, a wonderful musician, but he overpowered me and my ideas. He had a different approach. I was always leaning more toward a typical style. I was coming from bebop and an authentic Latin style, whereas he would like a lot of electronic influences. By the time I signed with Concord, my other band was ready to record, so me and Clare split up in a friendly way."

"I studied some classical giants, especially Bartok and Debussy, but didn't go too far into that realm for fear of losing my focus. I wanted to learn what made a string section really sing, then apply that to what I know and value in jazz. So my sources became Clare Fischer, particularly albums he'd done with Joao Gilberto; Claus Ogerman's things with Michael Brecker, including Cityscape (Warner Brothers); and Eddie Sauter on a a superb album by Stan Getz, Focus (Verve). These men are geniuses, and their music is timeless."

"Tristano was too contrived for me; he sounded terribly planned. Lee is very intuitive. One of my proudest achievements was when I finally got to play the saxophone well enough that I could improvise on it. I aimed to have a tone like Lee Konitz—but I don't necessarily think I got there!"

"Prince either uses or doesn't use what I have. When he gets it, I understand he listens to the strings separately, he'll listen to the brass separately and the woodwinds separately and then he'll put it all together and listen to it. So when we got to his movie, Cherry Moon, most of the music that was what you might refer to as the 'underscore' was the backgrounds that I had written for certain songs of his, that he took the voices and his part out. Now I would have preferred to write the individual sections, but on the other hand, it worked out just fine."

"Other losses that took a bite out of the music world: the swinging jazz piano of the incomparable Dave Brubeck, the lush arrangements of classical and jazz composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and Judy Garland’s musical director Mort Lindsey, who arranged her celebrated comeback at Carnegie Hall in 1961. And there was nobody more brilliantly talented than Mr. Clare Fischer, one of the finest composer-arranger-conductors in jazz for 60 years. He was the sound behind the Hi-Los, the sensational vocal quartet that revolutionized jazz singing in the 1950s, but he also enhanced the work of Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans ✱ and Cal Tjader."

"Scotty and I became good friends. We had an immediate musical rapport that was sensational. We did a lot of listening and talking. Besides technique, he had governing, control. I think he was the first bass player who was fleet-footed in the musical sense. [...] What a trauma! It struck me right down—that someone I was developing such a relationship with would suddenly not be there."

"I'm a writer who plays the piano. As I write, I find new things I like. I make them into what I call principles, and they become part of my playing vocabulary. That's the secret of what you get from composing. You get to discover things that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Much like a speech pattern, your improvisation patterns can get stale if you don't keep building your vocabulary. Each time you re voice something, you change the sound. When you do this enough, you get used to those sounds, and they start to come out as you play. You end up using voicings that aren't common, which gives you an auditory identity."

"Palmer comprehends (by dint of predatory maleness, I suppose) that this music is ultimately about seduction rather than romance. Clare Fisher's [sic] arrangements have the kind of brassy swagger and classy, stylish sweep that a ladies' man needs."

"When it would come back, it was always, "Oh my God, this is so exciting." He'd get the FedEx package and inside would be the multi-track tape and on the stereo pair of tracks would be this orchestral mix that Clare had done. He'd push up the faders and there it is. I mean, there's something brand new. It was thrilling and really, really exciting. Those were breathless moments. Prince loved what Clare did."

"I had a concussion nine years ago, and that changed things. I had always been sensitive musically, but now, since the concussion, I find the emotion is there immediately. There is no build. I hear several chord changes — it could be three or four chord changes from a string orchestra — and, man, I’m just gushing tears. I don’t take it as a weakness. Sometimes it might get slightly embarrassing to observers. On the other hand, I’m not putting it on. I’m in no way trying to exaggerate feeling. My feelings are exactly the opposite. Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t be quite as sensitive because then I wouldn’t have to go through this thing when I write."

"You have to recognize those writers who are artists in the same sense as the musicians. “Catching colds and missing trains.” Man, I wish I could say something that clever. Johnny Mercer was a wonderful lyric writer. You have to appreciate those. And then you get into the other thing where the lyricist says, “It’s not the composer, it’s what the lyricist did that’s important.” Come on. When I find a song that is equal parts of both, that’s a damn good song, and that’ll be one of the songs I use all the time."

"With special thanks 2 Clare Fischer 4 Making Brighter the Colors Black and White"

"You get tired of dealing with how other people think of what you're doing. It finally gets to the point where you realize that if you're going to do it the way you want, you have to do it yourself. That might mean putting up the money to do it yourself."

"I had gone to hear the winner of that year's drum and bugle corps competition. That band played a chord that made every hair on my body stand up. I've been in front of great symphony orchestras, and the greatest bands, but I've never had my hair stand up quite like that. That's when I decided to write for the bugles."

"In 1964, my first steady job in the studios in this city was with the NBC Orchestra playing for the Andy Williams Show. So who comes on that show but Antonio Carlos Jobim. And he comes over to the orchestra, doesn’t say a word to me. He sits down to the piano and starts playing a bossa I had written that the Hi-Lo’s recorded. I mean, he’s heard of me?"

"When I had a big band in the late 1960s, though, Warne and I were working quite a lot together. Warne would be turning time around, and dealing with cross-the-bar structures, and starting phrases in odd places—his intuition was really far out! He was one of the greatest players ever."

"For my whole life I can’t remember not doing what I’m doing now, and I’m seventy. I was picking out four-part harmony at eight and nine years of age on the piano. Why? I don’t know. I don’t care. All I know is it’s there and harmony is something that really stimulates the hell out of me. I just saw each thing as a logical exposure to something which I developed further."

"How did I get to Lee Konitz, when everybody else was doing Charlie Parker? The sound, for one thing, the notes that he played—man, it just knocked me off my feet! When Lee was first playing, God he was inventive! I worked out so many solos of his off the records, from when he began recording with Tristano and Warne Marsh in 1949. I listened to Charlie Parker but I was not a fan—he was repeating himself too much."

"Therese [Stoulil]: Please send 2 Claire Fisher 4 Orchestration. Tell him I'd like a full orchestra. There are 12 open tracks. Tell him 2 go 4 broke and play something thruout the whole song. I'll edit what I can't use. If he is unable 2 do the date ask him 4 recommendations of other people. Tell him I hope he's in good health & spirits. Thanks."

"Well, voicings, I learned a valuable lesson once when I was in a piano club with Clare Fischer and George Shearing.✱ And it was Shearing's club. And it existed, I'd say, from '62 to '63; and then, unfortunately, he had to let it go, because certain members in the club went into the business side of the club as a political force. But that one year we were in his organization, I learned a lot from Clare and George Shearing about the technique of voicing. I was taught to just take any chord and, all of a sudden, just take it through every single key, every single imaginable voicing that I could come up with. Just runnin' through every single key. And Clare Fischer told me; he said, "Joe, you will get to that point, once you run everything through every, every single key," he said, "you will reach that point that you could just throw your hands on the keyboard and play blindly, and you gonna play a chord. you gonna play some kind of voicing." And that was something I worked on for years."

"His chord voicings, whether in the left hand alone or in the frequent two-handed block chording, are simply extraordinary. When the inner voices shift while the bass note stays the same, it can be difficult to tell just what the chord is and how it’s functioning in the phrase, but the sense of movement, of progression if you will, remains clear. This dense harmonic interplay reaches an apogee in “Du, Du, Liegst Mir Im Herzen,” a traditional tune that Fischer makes very affecting by keeping the melody virtually intact while the chords quietly tie themselves into knots."

"On a recent evening, the bandstand at Donte's was occupied by what appeared to be three tall, sleek refrigerators, surrounded by a portion of the interior of a spaceship. These were in fact the amplifiers and main body of the Yamaha EX-42, an electronic organ allegedly as revolutionary in the keyboard world as the SST in aviation. This monster, which carries a five-figure price tag, is as yet almost unknown in the United States. On this occasion the owner and performer was Clare Fischer. During the set he allowed some of the rare experiments at his disposal to come into play. The EX-42 is capable of a violin-like vibrato; its sforzandos are like no other organ I have heard; and it has a piano stop that actually sounds like a piano, or at least one with thumb tacks. The pitch is adjustable from 432 to 455 cycles. It is touch-responsive, i.e. the quality and quantity of sound can vary according to how you hit the keys. The question that arises is how much better can the music be with all these aids to nature? The verdict is not yet in, but anyone as resourceful as Fischer will soon produce a favorable answer. Surrounded by Victor Feldman on vibes and percussion, Gary Foster on saxes, Larry Bunker on drums and Andy Simpkins on bass, Fischer played a charming Brazilian waltz and several beguiling pieces by Tom Scott and others. It is to his credit that he did not try to show the total sonic potential of the EX-42, which must be awesome."

"At this point, I wouldn't want to jinx it by meeting him. His arrangements are incredible. I just send him a tape, we talk on the phone, and he sends me the finished orchestra tracks. Hear that? I'm gonna get that chord on the radio, baby!"

"Clare’s harmonic concepts are not limited to intriguing sonorities created by harmonic appoggiaturas and illusions. He also stretches the limits of the chord structures themselves, structures that remain unresolved, creating entirely new, stationary chord sounds. Read, for example, "Coker’s Blues" (from Extension), and "Quiet Dawn," where you’ll find many examples of new vertical sonorities."

"Wow Factors: Absolute integrity is a must, but it's also the emotional content that will get the listener. A Memorable Performance: Taking my children to see Duke Ellington perform live in L.A. with his big band around 1970. His sax section is irreplaceable. Advice for Achieving "Wow": There is only one level and that is professional. You must do whatever is required to achieve that in every performance. Audition Tips: Anybody can show off with flashy displays, but when a performance exudes maturity, that can only come as a result of deep, heartfelt contemplation. That person will stand out. Sensing Something Extraordinary: When you are reduced to tears by the sheer beauty of what you are hearing. Who Would You Like to Hear? To be able to hear J.S. Bach take a melody and improvise what amounts to a spontaneous composition is the most amazing thing I can think of. Have Wow Factors Changed? Audiences tend to be fickle. I've been lucky enough in that many musicians attend my concerts, so that I can just be myself."

"When I met Clare Fischer I was 27, and I was very impressed with his beautiful harmonies. At that moment it was very important to me because I was more into jazz than commercial music. And in that sense it changed my harmonic concept and opened up a wide spectrum of possibilities. Later, when I started working more in pop and jazz and in conducting and arrangement, that remained forever, even though those harmonic concepts don't apply to everything. But everything is always there."

"Saxophonist Tom Scott, bassists John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, keyboardist Patrice Rushen and drummer Ndugu Chancler are but a few of the L.A.-based contemporary jazz talents who are taking part in "A Tribute to Clare Fischer." [...] The event, which will be emceed by the ever-chipper Chuck Niles, is sponsored by Musicians Wives, Inc. and is being held to offset medical expenses incurred by the Grammy-winning Fischer, a keyboardist-composer-arranger who suffered severe head injuries in an accident in July. Fischer, who has worked with Cal Tjader, orchestrated for Dizzy Gillespie and Prince and had his tunes recorded by Art Blakey, is recuperating at his Studio City home. "Though he's still suffering from short term memory loss, dizziness and depression, he's greatly improved and the latest CAT scans show that blood clots in his brain that showed up after the accident have almost disappeared," said the keyboardist's son, Brent Fischer, a percussionist who plays in his father's band.✱ Fischer said his father is back to playing every day, and "he wrote a new song as soon as he came home. He's just taking it easy, reading and talking to a lot of old friends who are wishing him well." Not only will attendees at the tribute hear a lot of good music, they will be eligible for door prizes which range from a Kurzweil K-1000 synthesizer to signed LPs by Prince and Paul McCartney."

"I am one of the best kept secrets in jazz history. Many of my early records are hard to find and it is still difficult to release new ones."

"What the chord symbols [B(flat)13#11 and A(flat)13#11] of the final two bars don't reveal is that the right-hand voicings are generated from two rising chromatic lines in a rather Clare-Fischer-like way(three names now?). In fact, the problem with this tune, now as when I wprote it, is that the chord symbosl alone don't tell the whole story. [...] As I discovered in my own version of "Wayne's World" - now, why didn't 1 think of that? - certain sounds can fit in between the counterpoint of melody and bass without reference to "proper" chord symbols. This was reinforced as I learned more about classical composers and the music of jazz pianist/arranger Clare Fischer in particular."

"I visited Clare’s home in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1952 (before he moved to the West Coast). He had to respond to a last-minute gig offer, and so I had the opportunity to speak with his mother in the meantime. She told me that Clare used to run home from public school each day to sit at the piano and improvise music that closely reflected his mood of that day. When he was happy, inspired, thoughtful, or at peace, she would hover in a nearby room to hear and love the beauty that would emanate from the piano. But she said that on those occasions when he returned from school depressed or in a foul mood, the resulting musical pathos would force her to run out into the back yard to escape being affected by the highly-disturbing, heart-wrenching sounds. Clare feels very deeply about his music, never writing or playing anything that doesn’t agree with his true feelings (at the emotional level) and his unwavering sense of musical integrity."

"I found, once I passed the age of forty, that I have a good sense of humor. It’s only through that I can keep stuff off and go through my life. If you sit and try to take on everything that is going on out there, you’re going to end up with problems. That’s where I feel music. And music becomes the way in which I express feelings. And, because it allows me to have contact with my emotions, it’s a constant catharsis, not just playing and writing. By doing that, you alleviate something inside of you. And who knows where that comes from?"

"I'm working with Natalie Cole this afternoon. We've been working on vocals lately, and we had an incredible string date yesterday down at Ocean Way. Clare Fischer did the string arrangements for a couple of tunes, and I arranged some others. Clare is a genius. The way he hears internal string parts is just incredible."

"Because Clare Fischer and Terry Trotter, who co-led a quintet Tuesday at Le Cafe, are both pianists, it was logical to expect a piano duo performance. That, however, was not exactly what transpired. Trotter, who has racked up a long series of pop and jazz credits, played piano, sometimes opening entirely alone before the rhythm section joined in. Fischer's medium was an electric keyboard--fortunately one of the cleaner sounding, non-distorting models. The interaction between the leaders was secondary; much of the time, one would solo while the other comped. Fischer displayed his always acute harmonic ear in "Two for the Road," "Nobody Else but Me," his own rhythmically engaging "Coco B" and a blues. Trotter soloed with sensitivity on "I Never Told You," dedicated to its composer Johnny Mandel, who was in the room. Fischer's backup work during Trotter's solos, and also when guitarist John Pisano had the lead, consisted of rhythmic punctuations so incisive and attractive that he sometimes came close to stealing the attention; but not close enough to spoil the mutual feeling of pleasure in this totally unprepared, ad hoc quintet."

""Quiet Dawn" is somewhat reminiscent of certain aspects of the work of Alban Berg, especially the stacking of either augmented or diminished chords in a manner which stretches tonality to it limits, while always retaining at least a hint of tonal gravity. In measures 10, 12, 13 and 14 Clare uses an interesting combination of conventional 4-3 suspension resolutions combined with tritone relationships in the bass. Measure 10, for example, combines the 4-3 suspension resolution of a Bb seventh chord with an E natural in the bass. The 4-3 suspension voice is also colored here with parallel major second intervals (Db-Eb to C-D natural). Clare has many varieties of this suspension variation in his vocabulary, and he traces them to such diverse sources as bebop chord substitutions and slow movements from Shostakovich symphonies."

"In 1992 by chance I witnessed a drum and bugle corps competition on television and became aware of three-valve bugles. A year later my wife, Donna, and I attended a performance in La Mirada of the previous year's winner. I have experienced fine concert band performances and also good symphonies in my life, but what was not prepared for what I experienced that day. The entire bugle corps was turned away from us playing softly and suddenly they turned toward us and projected a very thick chord. Every hair on my body stood up (and I have a lot of it) and I decided at that moment to buy some of these instruments. In the next year I purchased approximately $14,000 worth of bugles. After having completed an orchestrational family all the way down to the contrabass bugle, I began writing. This album is the result of this particular interest in my sixth decade in music."

"Since suffering a concussion eight years ago, I find my inside emotions are right to the front and as such, when I heard that Antonio Carlos Jobim had died in December of 1994 I was much affected, I experienced happenings like no other time in my life. While sleeping one night, I dreamed that I was conducting a recording session with strings in Brazil and we were performing Jobim's "Corcovado," except that besides thje melody and harmony, there was polyharmonic bass line. As I awakened from this dream, I went to my piano and wrote down what I had dreamed."

"Sometime 30 years ago I wrote a piece for the Stan Kenton Neophonic Band. The night of the concert at the Music Center Auditorium in Los Angeles Stan counted it off much too fast. When it came to the recapitulation at the end, the woodwind instrumentation had changed to mixtures of piccolos, flutes and saxes; and being too fast, it turned into a woodwind knuckle-buster. I was hiding on the floor between the seats. Later, when this was recorded, Stan counted too slowly. That recording was released without my piece. Years later when Stan created his "The Creative World of Stan Kenton" record company, Capitol was so angry that he had left them and released everything they had in the can to jeopardize his market. My piece was released with the first third cut off. I rewrote this for my present instrumentation and when we first went through it, while conducting, I was in tears to finally hear what I had written 30 years ago."

"It's funny. People come to my house because I was recommended to them to do some writing. They've never heard of me, and you can see the reticence written all over their faces. Then they look at the walls and see the platinum and gold albums and they say, "Oh. That one's from Prince! That's from Robert Palmer! Oh my God, Paul McCartney!" And then they say, "You're a really fine composer"--without having heard any of my music."

"Now, we decided to start a little early to honor my father. You see, I find it highly ironic that one of the most punctual men in the history of civilization is now being referred to as the late Clare Fischer. He used to tell me a story so many times about when he was working with Freddie Hubbard, the trumpeter. Freddie called him one day. He said, "Clare, I'd like to talk to you about a new project. Can you show at my manager's office tomorrow morning at about 11?" And dad said, "Sure." So, naturally, he was there for the 11 o'clock meeting at 10:40, and proceeded to converse cordially with the manager for forty minutes. And then he got up and he said, "It's 11:20. I'm leaving. I'm out." And that was that. Months later, he saw Freddie at a gig somewhere, and Freddie said, "Clare, what happened?" And he explained to him about the importance of punctuality. And Freddie looked at him, and he said, "Are you German?""

"So this is the man who loved animals with such intensity that he named far too many songs after every critter he ever encountered. The man who's written countless songs for his loves, his children, his friends, living and deceased. The man who, in countless pictures sifted through for this occasion, could be seen feeding birds at the drop of a hat, petting a stray cat, letting a dog sit on his lap; who loved children so much, took such delight in them, that he had to move right across the street from an elementary school so he could watch them play. My father, who brought me lunches at my grade school, and my friends lunches too. Whose laughter could fill a room. Who paid for my first professional recording and came to my debut gig at the Troubadour when I was fifteen. Whom I spent endless hours in conversation with, about history and philosophy and comparative religion. Who stole my Greek History books off my bookshelf. (I stole his books too.) This is the man I love fiercely, and I know that he loved me and my family fiercely in kind, and I'm forever grateful for that. And there's one more thing—well, two more things I'm grateful for: one is that the love of his life came to him, and for the last twenty years, transformed it in a manner I cannot even put words to, and I'm so deeply grateful to have her as my mother, and unspeakably grateful that my dad had that in his life. And again, I thank you all for being here, celebrating my father's life."

"We first met Francis the day Clare played at the 'Manhattan Jazz Club' in Euro-Disneyland Paris. It was in February of 1995 and Francis was in South America. He flew home the day Clare performed because he didn't want to miss the opportunity to hear him play. He and Bernard Maury were in the audience and after the performance came up to Clare, introduced themselves and talked for quite a while. Then in February, 1997 we were in France again and again Francis attended a performance of Clare's in a nightclub in the Hotel Alliance in the St. Germain section of Paris. That night he invited us to join him the next day for lunch. He came to our hotel (He lived about 3 hours from Paris) and he and his son, Stephane took us to a delightful restaurant. The restaurant walls were covered with autographs and pictures of musicians who had at one time or another eaten there. We had a late lunch, the restaurant closed, but the owner kept us there to talk and sip wine and spend time together most of the afternoon. It was really quite delightful. Francis asked if we would ever consider returning to Paris and spend a lengthy visit with him in his home in Antigny. We were so pleased and told him we would love to. We received a letter soon after we returned home to affirm the plan, but heard nothing further.""

"I'm glad I had the presence of mind to think, "You know, these performances aren't going to last forever, so I should enjoy every one while we're doing it, right now." And I'm so glad that I did that, because then, once I had my own instrumental parts down, I could just sit and enjoy what everybody else was doing, and absorb the music my father was writing. And along the way, I discovered that there are basically two distinguishing hallmarks to the music of Clare Fischer. One is an unconventional harmonic vocabulary. I liken this to a fine author. While most of us will go through life with a running vocabulary of about two or three thousand words out of the six hundred thousand in the English language, some gifted writers may know around ten or fifteen thousand. And it's not just that they know the words; it's how they use them. They don't just decide, "I'm going to be abstruse and vituperous." They put these words in a specific place at a specific time for emotional impact. And so it is with my father and his use of harmony. The second hallmark is his use of interesting instrumental colorings. He knew how to combine instruments and how to write for them because he had played almost every single one of them. And his favorites were the ones that, of course, no one else was using, like the ones you just saw up here – alto clarinet, contrabass sax."

"When he won a Grammy in 1984 for Best Latin Jazz Album,✱ he delighted his fans by giving his acceptance speech in Spanish."

"I relate to everything. I'm not just jazz, Latin or classical. I really am a fusion of all of those; not today's fusion, but my fusion."