I play as I feel.
Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing. I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea. I have no one style. I play as I feel.
The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn’t be able to do that.
I don’t believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.
If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.
Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.
I dont do something because I think it will sell 30 million albums. I couldnt care less. If it sells one, it sells one.
Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.
I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.
If it wasn’t for hustlers, gangsters and gamblers there’d be no Jazz. Wasn’t middle-class who said Let’s go hear Bird tonight.
Ah music… a magic beyond all we do here!
I love songs that are very autobiographical.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.
I remember Glenn Miller coming to me once, before he had his own band, saying, How do you do it? How do you get started? It’s so difficult. I told him, I don’t know but whatever you do don’t stop. Just keep on going.
Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.
I never set out to find a style of my own, it just happened.
Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.
I am a writer – that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.
Jazz is letting everybody do his or her thing with the music.
You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!
My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.
