Tony Williams

Composing makes me feel like I’ve finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.

Live music is best! Make plans to get out and support your local Jazz scene.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it’s about feeling more than being perfect.

I don’t pop my cork for every man I see.

One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.

I saw a vibraphone for the first time and knew immediately I had found my means of expression.

Musicians need to continue higher learning try to expand the pallet.

People who like Jazz feel the depth and soul and intelligence that the music expresses.

And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.

I think that those elements – light and sound – are beyond democratic. They’re into the creative part of life.

You explore beautiful songs and create your own interpretation of them.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.