Ornette Coleman

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. ‘Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

I wasn’t so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That’s why I’m broke.

How can I turn emotion into knowledge? That’s what I try to do with my horn.

In Kansas City joints ran 9pm-5am. Pay was a $1.25 a night but somebody special like Count Basie could command $1.50.

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

Get around, be on the scene, play it clean, be seen, be keen and be over eighteen.

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

When you begin to teach jazz, the most dangerous thing is that you tend to teach style…I had eleven piano students, and I would say eight of them didn’t even want to know about chords or anything – they didn’t even want to do anything that anybody had ever done, because they didn’t want to be imitators. Well, of course, this is pretty naive…but nevertheless it does bring to light the fact that if you’re going to try to teach jazz…you must abstract the principles of music which have nothing to do with style, and this is exceedingly difficult. So there, the teaching of jazz is a very touchy point. It ends up where the jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious jazz player, teaches himself.

Music is what feelings sound like.

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.

Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of half-fast.

I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.

As long as I can say what it is that I need to say, then I’ll fit whatever I’m trying to say around a melody.

I wanted to sustain a note like a singer. I wanted to phrase a note like a saxist. By bending the strings, by trilling my hand – and I have big fat hands – I could achieve something that approximated a vocal vibrato. I could sustain a note. I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions. By fooling with the feedback between my amplifier and instrument, I started experimenting with sounds that expressed my feelings, whether happy or sad, bouncy or bluesy. I was looking for ways to let my guitar sing.

Jazz speaks for life. This is triumphant music.

My music is Jazz.

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.