Ornette Coleman

The hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know: You feel this, you play this.

I never thought about being famous or rich. I just thought, Oh, I’ll get a nice little girl and go and play every night, and I’d be happy. And that worked for a while. But the little girl’s mother didn’t trust a guy with a horn.

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.

The idea is more important than the style you’re playing in.

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time.

Jazz music is the real deal.

Music’s been around a long time, and there’s going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it’s a big record, that’s the frosting on the cake, but music’s the main meal.

I am not interested in compromising my music to make it palatable to an assumed sub-standard mass.

Once we’re inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

Just ’cause I’ve forgotten more than I can play, doesn’t mean it’s not Improv.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don’t have to worry about anything.

Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Leo wanted me to be partners with him – for it to be the Fender guitar: the Les Paul Fender. When he approached me with the idea, he brought over a guitar and he gave it to me and I have it here. And I thought, if I’m gonna do this I’m going to go with the biggest company in the world: Gibson. Why should I fool around with some guy who is not a musician – I should go to the Gibson people.

As a little kid, blues meant hope, excitement, pure emotion. Blues were about feelings. They seem to bring out the feelings of the artist and they brought out my feelings as a kid. They made me wanna move, or sing, or pick up Reverend’s guitar and figure out how to make those wonderful sounds.

I gave it my absolute everything I had in that howl at the start of the song. And then B. B. King opened up his mouth and I felt like a girl. We had learned and absorbed, but the more we tried to be like B.B., the less convincing we were.

Composing makes me feel like I’ve finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.

People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.