The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.
[On urging Nyro to tell Barbara Streisand that ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ had been personally written for her] It’s not a big lie.
Despite the fact I’m a professional performer, it’s true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.
Jazz is restless. It won’t stay put and it never will.
I want people to walk away with the same joy, hope and love that I put into my music.
You’ve got to learn your instrument.
Bird said he worked as dishwasher at Onyx Club on 52nd St. in the early 1940s just to hear Art Tatum play.
Musicians should never forget we’re blessed. We have a special gift that people enjoy through us.
I’m an experimenter. It’s rich because every album I’ve done, except for a couple of techno-y records, are different. Really you’ve got to hand it to the Fender Strat, because there are songs in that guitar. It’s a tool of great inspiration and torture at the same time because it’s forever sitting there challenging you to find something else in it, but it is there if you really search.
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. Thats a little bit too much.
Let the music speak for itself.
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
Just allow your feelings to go with the music and you’ll find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.
They said Bird played bebop, but Bird could still swing. I’ve heard a lot of guys play bebop, but they wasn’t swinging.
I’m surprised Beyonce liked me. I met Beyonce!!
There’s always room for improvisation or changes of expression.
I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.
I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized.
We may not be changing the world dramatically, but we’re improving it one note at a time.
Jazz is the false liquidation of art, instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture.
