Milt Jackson

I have younger friends who don’t work and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It’s over; it’s on the record.

I don’t have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapy is in art.

Love songs last because they are about feelings that don’t change.

Practicing is like getting your vocabulary together to use on the gig.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

The thing I always default to is that I’ll always be here to write songs.

Back in college, when I got kicked out of school, I was still in school, I’d just written the song that got me my record deal. If I hadn’t gotten kicked out of school I wouldn’t be where I am now. Three months after that, I got my record deal and the rest is history.

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

Jazz is a living music; since its beginning has expressed the feelings, dreams and hopes of the people.

Get around, be on the scene, play it clean, be seen, be keen and be over eighteen.

A great thing about being a musician is you don’t stop until the day you die.