Lee Morgan

There are no natural barriers. It’s all music.

I let my body play what’s in my heart. I play life instead of notes. I play what I lived.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

I hate to think of Jazz as black and white, something political.

I think Ive done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I havent yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe Id reached that peak. But Im 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, Ill be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.

Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.

Man, as long as people want to hear Jazz, I’ll give it to them.

I prefer no one to teach me. I prefer to swing on my own.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

You don’t have to live the blues to play the blues.