Dave Brubeck

Don’t be a perfectionist… leave that to the classical musicians.

I never wanted this kind of life that I’m still living.

Kinship doesn’t come from skin color. It’s in your soul and your mind.

There is a time where you’re beyond yourself, better than your technique, better than your usual ideas.

Jazz stands for freedom.

I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.

Music is the greatest communication in the world.

I grew up with the piano. I learned its language as I learned to speak.

He almost adds a Chet-like sound to it.

Even when you write it, someone’s got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you’re still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I’m really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.

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 hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know

Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you’re not feeling right, play a minor tune and it falls into place.

They’re not particular about whether you’re playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can’t go there. So I’m back to Count Basie lifting his hand. And I find you can stop that show with one note just like you can with a hundred.

It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

I learn something new every day.