Lewis Nash

I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.

Forget about upholding the tradition and just play who you really are.

You must own it to play it.

Something just grabs you about a song.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

Music’s been around a long time, and there’s going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it’s a big record, that’s the frosting on the cake, but music’s the main meal.

Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

Jazz amounts to Blues, your unique sound and the elusive genius of improvisation.

Hipness is what it is. But sometimes hipness is what it ain’t.

Learn the tunes by playing the masters, learn expression by playing yourself.

Music is the only language in which you cannot say anything sarcastic.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

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

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.