I have no one style.
Some players get very philosophical and cerebral about Jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play.
I play as I feel.
I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.
I don’t do something because I think it’ll sell 30 million albums. I couldn’t care less if it sells just one.
You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.
If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.
The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
Even now, at 82 years old, if I don’t learn something every day, you know what I think? It’s a day lost. Now, I don’t practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I’m doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.
Music is what feelings sound like.
Playing bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!
I feel I have only scratched the surface of what I know I am capable of doing.
Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.
I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that’s what I got back to.
My music is Jazz.
However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.
Jazz has the ability to absorb and transform influences from diverse musical styles.
I work very hard at being the best musician I can be because I love it.
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time.
It was a great thrill to listen every night and hear him on NBC radio. Les played just as great then. And then later on, in the 1950s, Les Paul turned the whole world on to guitar. He’s just a terrific, flashy, tasty guitarist.
I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.
