Theodor W. Adorno

No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society to express yourself freely and creatively.

I’d rather be B.B. King. That’s the way I started. Let the heavy metal guys play heavy metal, let the others play the other… I try to do what I do better, not get away from it.

I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.

I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you’re tired and that’s all there is to it.

I’ve always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn’t have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.

I think that what is important is that the music be honest and direct and that it is relevant to today.

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

My singing evolved with a feeling of intense relaxation, always using my diaphram and breathing specifically through my nose.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

[On Louis Armstrong] You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him, not even modern shit. I can’t even remember a time when he sounded bad playing the trumpet. Never. Not even one time. He had great feeling up in his playing and he always played on the beat. I just loved the way he played and sang.

If I’m not a jazz player all the time, I’ve at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

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.

When the label came to me to say, ‘would you like to do another record,’ I said, ‘Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let’s do it.’ And that was pretty much it… I never stopped writing, it’s just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.