Gary Burton

Always keep reaching.

Improvising musicians are musical travelers, voyagers. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of Jazz.

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

It is better to be felt than to be heard.

I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

You don’t know what love is, until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues, until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose.

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.

When I decided that I wanted to be a Jazz musician, I knew that it was about improvising.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

I started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

I tried to connect my singing voice to my guitar an’ my guitar to my singing voice. Like the two was talking to one another.

Excessive reverence for the romantic illusion of original thought is the most fraudulent and destructive element in Jazz education.