Jon Anderson

If you play a tune and a person don’t tap their feet, don’t play the tune.

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

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.

No one remembers who wrote the tune, putting pen to paper in some lonely place. They remember who had the hit.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

I always make it a point to pick songs on which players really shine.

When the label came to me to say, ‘would you like to do another record,’ I said, ‘Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let’s do it.’ And that was pretty much it… I never stopped writing, it’s just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.

I think I’ve tried to stay true to my music since the beginning. It’s kind of hard because of the access and technology but I just do what I do.

My role as a drummer is as a team player to enhance what is going on around me.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.

[On urging Nyro to tell Barbara Streisand that ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ had been personally written for her] It’s not a big lie.

The main thing is you want to emote.

I’ve worked with jazz artists, country artists, classical artists, pop artists. I never wanted there to be categories, because when I was a kid there weren’t.