Ron Carter

I felt a responsibility to present a viable alternative to the popular electric sound.

I am from the planet of elegance.

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

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

I don’t really get nervous, I prepare. When the music messed up in the beginning, it tapped into my nerves and when you’re nervous and vulnerable, something special and something different can happen.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

All I play is truth and emotion.

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy… all the things that humans have.

A great teacher stimulates his student’s creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.

If you want to be a musician, study your craft. Study music.

The thing I always default to is that I’ll always be here to write songs.

When the music changes, so does the dance.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.