Invest yourself in everything you do. There’s fun in being serious.
Talk of God is most often in church. Is there a God outside of church? I hope so. But how should I know? How does anybody know?
Your accompanist has a lot to do with how you sing, so experiment and choose your partner wisely.
If a guy’s got it, let him give it. I’m selling music, not prejudice.
I don’t get jazz. It always sounds like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room.
The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.
Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.
I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I’ve never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I’ve wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn’t work.
A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!
Music is your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
When you are studying Jazz best thing to do is listen to records and live music as much you can and absorb everything.
Most of the stuff I learned to play, I learned in high school. I had a band in high school, a jazz-fusion thing, and I was the keyboard player. I was interested in how the instruments worked and the theory behind playing with them.
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.
Jazz music is our original American culture.
Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.
I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.
The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
Jazz is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.
