There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.
I learn something new every day.
Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.
We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it’s beautiful, not necessarily commercial.
The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.
Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.
I cannot play a lie. I have to believe in what I play or it won’t come out.
Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn’t have a choice.
You don’t rehearse Jazz to death to get the camera angles.
You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.
My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.
I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.
A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other’s ideas.
If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it’s like the human voice
The saxophone is actually a translation of the human voice, in my conception. All you can do is play melody. No matter how complicated it gets, it’s still a melody.
People involve themselves with the superficiality of Jazz without digging for its soul.
I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.
I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is thinking of what to play.
There are four qualities essential to a great Jazzman: taste, courage, individuality and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.
I came from an era when we didn’t use electronic instruments. The bass wasn’t even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.
Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.
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