Dave Lambert

When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn’t go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.

I think the one thing that I’ve learned is that you cannot predict what’s going to happen. You can’t sit back and try to figure out what people want or leave it up to them to decide. When we all started in this business we would dictate to the audience what was great and they picked up on that based on the fact that we believed that it was great. But that’s all changed. What’s happened in the last ten years or so because is that the technology now means that everyone with a computer can make music and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

After you’ve done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.

Miles Davis and John Coltrane were so cool, if alive today global warming wouldn’t be an issue.

I used to play pianos in bars. You know in hotels, you’d see guys playing piano with a snifter? That was me, with a painted-on mustache. I was about 15.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel… and that’s what I’ve been doing all my life.

I can’t sing it straight. I have no choice but to swing it.

Nothing is out of the question for me. I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light…Then I’m grateful.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues’, they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

Nobody has ever been able to define Jazz satisfactorily. This is probably because anyone who was capable of doing so never really wanted to, knowing how much you would have to leave out of the definition.

I’ve always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.

Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

Forget about upholding the tradition and just play who you really are.