Ornette Coleman

I’ve had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I’ve had lots of guys call me up. I’ve gotten two or three commissions to write things. I’ve written lots of movie scores.

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

Difference between sex and love? Well, you’re not always sure you’re in love. But when you’re having sex, there’s really no mistaking it.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know ? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.

When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don’t even notice.

I started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that’s just the way it came out.

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet, put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at Jazz.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.

It’s like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

For me, I started on a Les Paul and went through years of playing other guitars and just came back full circle to what was more natural to me.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

You don’t know what love is, until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues, until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose.

Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing even if it does take them 15, 20 years.