Love is sweeping the country.
Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.
One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.
Jazz is about being in the moment.
For me, there wasn’t a line between working and getting paid or simply playing for fun.
Jazz is letting everybody do his or her thing with the music.
Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.
Music and life are all about style.
You have to understand the styles and it’s good to study those that came before us.
If the bass plays the root, a pianist superimposes a Maj7 built on the 5th and the sax plays the 13th, will hot women notice?
I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.
We may not be changing the world dramatically, but we’re improving it one note at a time.
There’s a lot of recreational Jazz going on, where cats learn a particular style and become sharks on somebody else’s language.
People couldn’t give an F about how many cars you got any more. It’s about the way the music sounds, where you’re going, the experience you’re going to hanging out with your friends, the type clothes that you’re wearing – all of that’s art.
Why Jazz? This is just the way I see music.
The saxophone is actually a translation of the human voice, in my conception. All you can do is play melody. No matter how complicated it gets, it’s still a melody.
Jazz never ends… it just continues.
What I look for in concert is a connection with the audience.
