D C DowDell

From hard rhythms of Be-bop, the mellow harmonies of Cool, to atonal forays of Free and the Straight Ahead delivery of Modern, it’s all Jazz.

The true musician plays what he/she hears. That cannot be a mistake.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

Music is what feelings sound like.

10% of musicians make 90% of the money, while the remaining 90% of musicians make the 10% that’s left.

[on B. B. King] Very seldom does he talks about the way he play, man. He always wanna talk about young women. And I fuss at him sometimes, I say, ‘Man I wanna know what did you do here!’

Jazz is so incestuous that it’s starting to kill itself.

I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I’ve never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I’ve wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn’t work.

I never heard of a Jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do… play for the walls?

Of course there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

The blues tells a story in itself. It can make you happy or give you a feeling to swing.

Women have not been socialized to play drums. It’s not natural for us to hit thing.

I’d like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I’ve heard.

Whenever there’s a change with Jazz and its aesthetics, it’s almost always reflected with a change in the culture.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.

I don’t really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I’d like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.

My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.