I’m famous… ain’t that a bitch?
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing even if it does take them 15, 20 years.
I find my inspiration in myself.
If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.
Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.
I don’t consider myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can’t develop any further.
After two takes you’re imitating yourself.
I say, ‘Play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years’.
I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.
[on Ornette Coleman] Man, that cat is nuts!
If my own work had more importance than any others, it’s because the piano is the key instrument in music.
Jazz is freedom. You think about that.
I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.
If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.
I don’t have a definition of Jazz. You’re just supposed to know it when you hear it.
All musicians stimulate each other. The vibrations get scattered around.
The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.
I always wanted to play the piano, and jazz appealed to me.
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.
