Leonard Bernstein

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

Music is interior decoration.

It’s not what you do, but the way you’re doing it and in the end that’s all that we have.

The reason I write music is that I feel it’s a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence.

When I got started in New York, if you were different from Miles and Dizzy it was very difficult.

Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.

Music is like wine, the less you know about it the sweeter you like it. 

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

I was not prepared to play the role of singer in the camp of the warriors

Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

All musicians stimulate each other. The vibrations get scattered around.

As a young cellist I had played to an audience that had included Pablo Casals and reacted with poor, nervous playing. Casals sought me out after the concert and praised me highly, somewhat easing the pain and thinking him a very kind man.

There’s so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they’re here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.

The first jazz I heard was Duke Ellington. I was learning to play classical music, but my teacher swapped out those lessons for jazz lessons because I had started adding grace notes to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.