Freddie Hubbard

Dizzy used to tell me I’m playing too hard. He’d say to not give everything. Miles told me that too.

When I got started in New York, if you were different from Miles and Dizzy it was very difficult.

I’m not really on a mission to tell anybody anything. I’d rather be figured out.

Jazz without the Blues is like BBQ without the sauce.

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe I’m honest.

A guy is influenced by hundreds of people and things, and all show up in his work. To fasten on any one or two is ridiculous. I will say one thing, though. Lennie Tristano’s early records impressed me tremendously. Tunes like ‘Tautology,’ ‘Marshmallow,’ and ‘Fishin’ Around.’ I heard the fellows in his group building their lines with a design and general structure that was different from anything I’d ever heard in jazz.

I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say ‘Here I am,’ and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you’re confident, they’re confident. As long as you adjust to them you’re not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn’t pay to come out and look at the tapestries.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

A great thing about being a musician is you don’t stop until the day you die.

Spontaneously composed music is a counterpoint that has its own rules based on a natural order and intuitive logic.

Nothing is out of the question for me. I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light…Then I’m grateful.

I still do what I love, and I don’t really think about it. I try to make a beautiful show, so people go home happy. That’s my biggest aspiration: to make people happy.

Dog spelled backward is God. That’s pretty heavy.

Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

The weird thing about bass is the simplest stuff to do is the hardest.

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.

I’d solo on my guitar; then sing; then solo; then sing some more. one stopped when the other started. That way I felt a continuity, not a conflict, like a wheel that keeps turning. Both sounds – guitar and voice – were coming out of me, but they issued from different parts of my soul.