Eddie Condon

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

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

Jazz music is haunted by its own hungry ghosts.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

The only award I’ve ever worked for or wanted really were the ones that were given to me by the fans. So, whether it’s a platinum record or hit songs, those are the ones that last the most.

I want to create music that’s therapeutic.

We didn’t have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing.

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

I write about moments, and I don’t make blanket statements about anything because no one has all the answers; nobody’s come up with a foolproof way to do anything when it comes to emotions.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

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.

When I achieved what I thought the musicians were trying to do, the sound sort of bloomed. When it’s right, everything is beautiful.