"The way you play is spirit and it flows, and you can understand it regardless of what kind of rhythms you got. It all fits. But if you're playing mathematically correctly, it gets mechanical. Sun Ra never played the same music twice. It's always the same, but it's not the same. It's the vibration of the day; it's the way you feel today. Yesterday you was in another thought of mind, you interpreted things different. Today it's another day, so that makes the change. The basic melodies are there, but just like walking [bangs on the table—one, two, three, four]—you can't walk like that. You'd be a soldier. You'd bore a hole through the ground."
Marshall Allen [interview, THE WIRE, October 2015]