Nat King Cole

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

Only time, education and plenty of good schooling will make anti-segregation work.

For years the trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We starved.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you’ve got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

I may be helping to bring harmony between people through my music.

I sing like I feel.

Sounds of daily life are musical. I try to absorb the intricacies of sounds as if I were listening to music.

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

Difference between sex and love? Well, you’re not always sure you’re in love. But when you’re having sex, there’s really no mistaking it.

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.

I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.

You don’t rehearse Jazz to death to get the camera angles.

I’m my own most merciless critic onstage.

The fans dictate to you when you’re done!

Stop before you’re done.

I went through a struggle, and I really needed to get myself together and connect with my purpose, which is music.

I just remember always trying to emulate Dinah Washington, hanging out in my bedroom closet.

The English pianist Alan Clare was once intrigued with a workman who was carrying out some remodeling inside his house. Clare was playing some recordings, and he began to notice that the workman was whistling along with whatever music he put on – Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, it didn’t seem to matter. Even if he hadn’t heard it before, he had the natural musical ability to follow a melody closely and almost automatically. Clare decided to give him a real test and dug up his recording of Art Tatum doing Tea For Two, with the ground-breaking chord changes Tatum introduced into the tune. The workman never lost a beat nor did he lay out for a bar or two to figure out what was going on. He tracked Tatum flawlessly through all his changes, and when the record ended, he spoke for the first time. He glanced at Clare and with classic English understatement said, ‘Tricky f**ker, ain’t he?’

In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.