Growing up on the plantation there in Mississippi, I would work Monday through Saturday noon. I'd go to town on Saturday afternoons, sit on the street corner, and I'd sing and play.

I used to play - when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.

Well, I have a CBE and I accepted it with glee because it's not bestowed on you by the royal family, it's not bestowed on you by the government, you have to be nominated by the public.

I'll do the best I can for my family and for the fans.

I know who my dad is, I've met him a few times, but I don't even call him dad. I know it sounds horrible, but I don't even see him as part of my family, to be honest. If you want the truth, it doesn't bother me because I don't know any different. I just know that me and my mum, that was my family.

My real last name is Flores, and Milian is actually my mom's maiden name. So it's not made up, which is cool; it runs in the family. And it actually worked out better for my career to have the last name Milian, because Flores kept me in a little box, and no one really associated me with the last name Flores.