Henri Matisse

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it.

I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don’t like that. I listen to everything.

Composing is a mindset, a part of who I am.

Blow your life through your horn.

Jazz goes into my coffee in the morning, in my wine at night.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

The first time I ever had to go overseas for music was to play the Royal Festival Hall in London, singing in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and that week was insane: Thursday I rehearse with the orchestra; Friday I sing two songs in front of 2,500 people, which I have never done before; and the next day I go to Abbey Road to record with Herbie Hancock; and then I am playing a pub in south London somewhere, and nobody cares because London have lost some sporting match; and then I go home and I’m standing in front of my washing machine, putting my unmentionables into the dryer, and in that instant, I just looked at myself and said ‘This life is going to be strange’.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Music has to be accessible.

We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it’s beautiful, not necessarily commercial.

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

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.