Dexter Gordon

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

If you can’t play the Blues you might as well hang it up.

If you can’t play the blues, you might as well hang it up.

Jazz to me is a living music. It’s a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.

Music is a reservoir… of sounds.

Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.

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

I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, ‘Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.

Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

Sometimes I sound like gravel and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

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

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

I guess you can look at me, and tell I’m the old man. My name is BB King.

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

I’ve said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

I’ll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I’d never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I’d never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn’t much like it at first.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise . . . a part of yourself you never knew existed.

I want to create music that’s therapeutic.