Bill Evans

Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.

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.

Everyone is working who should be.

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument. This is a comprehensive technique . . . a feeling for the keyboard that will allow you to transfer any emotional utterance into it. What has to happen is that you develop a comprehensive technique and then say, forget that. I’m just going to be expressive through the piano.

You never master the instrument. You always just strive to get better.

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.

Oh, my darling, it’s incredible, that someone so unforgettable should think I am unforgettable, too.

There’s a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There’s also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

The fans dictate to you when you’re done!

Jazz has such great feeling and emotional content it really doesn’t require technical understanding.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

In order to be honest with myself, I have to reveal more of who I am. This is a part of the improv process.

If you listen to Donny Hathaway, he had a lot of jazz elements in the way he sang, … For me, the two styles borrow from each other so much that sometimes it’s hard for me to make a distinction. When you hear Lalah sing the combination, that’s when she really shines – when she’s allowed to dip into her jazz when she wants to and then get soulful and do the R ‘n’ B thing.

Art is a subject that is inundated with opinions. In fact, that’s all it is about is opinions.

Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.

Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.

No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

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

Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

People will always need love, romance, a tender touch and really personal and deeply felt music.