Elvis Presley

Trios offer simple instrumentation, but the orchestral possibilities are so profound.

Music is your own experience, your own 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.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Music activates the brain at a high level.

Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.

..I wanted to create music that was so different that my mother could tell me from anyone else.

In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions – one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.

I expect the audience to come up to my level.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

The emotional reaction is all that matters.

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

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’d take my guitar and play on the streets. A gospel song would get me a pat on the head. But a blues would get me a dime. So you see why I stuck with the blues.

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.

It could be my British need for discipline that makes me admire the American appetite for freedom and passion.