Woody Allen

I took a speed reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever.

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be playing.

Why Jazz? This is just the way I see music.

We open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to arrive at something new and different.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel not the way others think you should feel.

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

The way I think about the practicing, it is my undercover work.

We go in there and we work on altering those ideas and in many cases go in different directions.

Musicianship is using your two ears.

Indian music is very soulful and the only other school that develops improv to the high degree you find in Jazz.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

If there is no dance, there is not music.

I look for a deep, gutty feelin’ in a guitar tone. I don’t use picks. People ask, “How you get that?” It’s just there. There’s a lot of people try to play real fast chords-da da da da da-that ain’t the hard, solid blues. It’s synthetic. It has not feeling to it. You sit down and play some funky, funky guitar. Take your time! Don’t rush it. Just let it come flowing through you. I can play guitar so funky, it’ll bring teardrops to your eyes.

Find the best teachers, listen to the finest playing and try to emulate that. Be true to the music.

Art [Blakey] would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.