Joe Zawinul

I am an improviser, I improvise music. Whatever you want to call it, it’s all improvised music. I may capture it and go back and write it down for others, but it was originally improvised.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’

You can cage the singer but not the song.

The blues tells a story in itself. It can make you happy or give you a feeling to swing.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

The Blues contain so much joy and sadness at the same time.

Music’s a good thing, it calm the beast in the man.

One minute we’re over here, the next minute we’re doing something completely different. But it’s interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn’t do with analog.

The blues fitted in with the early 60s, the social way of life at the time.

I’m just trying to create context for me to improve my musicianship.

Music was our wife, and we loved her. And we stayed with her, and we clothed her, and we put diamond rings on her hands.

Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I’m happy with that.

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.

Play what you feel, feel what you play.

I grew up with the piano. I learned its language as I learned to speak.