Louie Bellson

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don’t learn something every day, you know what I think? It’s a day lost. Now, I don’t practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I’m doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.

If it ain’t fun, I want no part of it man. That’s the reason I play.

A series of vibrations. What does it matter, the source of the catalyst?

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.

By and large Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

Well if I could play like Wynton, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.

The reward for playing Jazz is playing Jazz.

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.

In classical music, only two people are important, the composer and the conductor. Everybody else is a serf. In jazz, a thing of beauty is created collectively with everybody getting to express an idea. And that reflects what democratic society is – or should be.

I have a lot of albums yet to do.

A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life.

Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable.

I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn’t making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don’t understand the part of money in running a band.