Ludwig van Beethoven

To play without passion is inexcusable.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.

Music is the tool to express life – and all that makes a difference.

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

People complain about the music industry, but this is a great time to be a musician.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

When I heard T-Bone, I flat out lost my mind.

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

There’s only one bass player in a band. I’m the best bass player of any band I’m in.

The majority of people mistakenly feel they don’t need a live musical experience.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. The blues didn’t have to explain the mystery of pain that I felt; it was there in the songs and voices of singers like Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, in the cries of their guitars.

Music is the great arbiter of the world, the key to central harmony and a necessary requirement of human emotion.

Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.

If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.

There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can’t go there. So I’m back to Count Basie lifting his hand. And I find you can stop that show with one note just like you can with a hundred.