Oscar Peterson

It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

Music is the only language in which you cannot say anything sarcastic.

I am very aware that so little has happened to the electric guitar from the time that it was conceived to now; where there are so little changes made where there should be drastic changes made. If we were to put our heads together and start thinking about modern technology we would be much more advantaged with the electric guitar than we are. I think that we’ve been stagnant for many years.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write to ultimately be at peace with himself.

The other day I came across a recording I made of a night at my apartment when I was living with Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan had been around earlier and we were all passing around the guitar. Whenever it came to my turn I would run into the kitchen and say I’d left the coffee on the stove or something. Shyness. Scared to perform.

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.

You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be playing.

Only play what you hear. If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything.

The first time I went to Paris, it just felt like I was home. I didn’t question it.

Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid.

My neighbors always listen to very hip Jazz… whether they like it or not.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.

They’re singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

I can’t sing it straight. I have no choice but to swing it.