Oscar Peterson

I have no one style.

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 believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.

Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.

If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

He’s not a performer, he’s not a composer, he’s not even a musician, but Norman Granz is Mr. Jazz.

Stop before you’re done.

I would sit on the street corners in my hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, and I would play. And, generally, I would start playing gospel songs. People would come by on the street – you live in Time Square, you know how they do it – they would bunch up. And they would always compliment me on gospel tunes, but they would tip me when I played blues.

You can’t sing about love unless you know about it.

True Jazz lovers understand the rhythms are infectious because they are the roots.

We didn’t have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free

The guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It’s everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It’s everything, but it’s elusive.

If the bass plays the root, a pianist superimposes a Maj7 built on the 5th and the sax plays the 13th, will hot women notice?

Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn’t about standing still and being safe.

A Jazz performance centers upon the process of creation. The final objective is not only the finished product, but the path and process taken towards it.

I never believed in a set routine. It should depend on how you feel, because you play what you feel.

A Les Paul, which is kind of a sissy guitar compared to a Strat anyway. The Les Paul is heavier, but because of that bulk you can do bends on it more easily. Also, the Les Paul’s lack of a vibrato arm means you’re not wrestling against the spring-loaded bridge all the time. The Strat is the ultimate because it’s like having a miniature pedal steel within it. Once you get familiar with it where the bends are and where they meld down into a fourth or whatever, you can do all kinds of pedal-steel-like things, which I think are cool..

Look at the tune and not make the same statement that has been made a million times.

People involve themselves with the superficiality of Jazz without digging for its soul.

If you follow your passions, you’ll never work a day in your life.

I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That’s the point now isn’t it?