George Shearing

Can anybody be given creativity? No. Only equipment to develop it if it’s in them in the first place.

That’s where I heard feedback first – from Les Paul. Also vibratos – even before B.B. King, you know. I’ve traced a hell of a lot of rock and roll, little riffs and things, back to Les Paul – it’s all there. I mean, he’s the father of it all: multi-tracking and everything else. If it hadn’t been for him, there wouldn’t have been anything really.

When you’re on stage you have a very strange knowledge of what the audience is. It isn’t exactly a sound – it’s a hum, like the streets.

I’d take my guitar and play on the streets. A gospel song would get me a pat on the head. But a blues would get me a dime. So you see why I stuck with the blues.

Don’t bullshit, just play.

It angers me how scholars associate the blues strictly with tragedy.

I’m famous… ain’t that a bitch?

Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at Jazz.

I don’t really look at my career in terms of highlights and low lights. I think I’m at this place right now and to be at this place right now I’ve had to go through many obstacles and lots of highs and lows and for me it’s about the entire journey.

The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know ? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

Jazz music is the real deal.

Jazz is something you have to feel, something you have to live.

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