Marian McPartland

Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you’re not feeling right, play a minor tune and it falls into place.

When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

As long as I can say what it is that I need to say, then I’ll fit whatever I’m trying to say around a melody.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Life is a lot like jazz. It’s best when you improvise.

When I decided that I wanted to be a Jazz musician, I knew that it was about improvising.

Music is what I hear and something that I live by.

[on Prince] I learned about music that didn’t have any barriers or any kind of, like, containment. I learned about wild, crazy topics and ways to express yourself that had never been written in quite that way before. I learned that a human being could be able to defy all stereotypes, and be the epitome of badassness.

I don’t believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from.

Spontaneously composed music is a counterpoint that has its own rules based on a natural order and intuitive logic.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

Good music is good music and everything else can go to hell.

It’s either hip or it ain’t.

Words are the children of reason and therefore can’t translate the feeling of Jazz because they’re not part of it.