Chico Hamilton

I don’t dig staying in one groove.

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

I’ve never thought the blues was a matter of copying other people. The blues singer should sing songs about his own life. And once the ball got rolling, I felt confident enough to do that as well as cover other people’s songs, and the tributes. You’ve got to think about representing your own life in the music, and for me that meant bringing in an element of jazz; I was brought up on jazz, it was my father’s work, it was in the house.

A beat is a moment in the life a groove.

I heard someone say ‘What’s that kid doing here? Call your piano player and let’s get started.’

It’s not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

I’m always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

[On Louis Armstrong] You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him, not even modern shit. I can’t even remember a time when he sounded bad playing the trumpet. Never. Not even one time. He had great feeling up in his playing and he always played on the beat. I just loved the way he played and sang.

Miles’ sessions were not typical of anybody else’s sessions. They were totally unique.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.

My chops were not as fast… [but] I just learned more on what was in my mind than what was in my chops. I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it’s the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with twenty notes.

You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

Jazz is one of the least learnable art forms.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.