I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light. Then I’m grateful.
The minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.
They’re not particular about whether you’re playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.
If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.
Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.
You know at an early age if you have a talent for music.
Those who were seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music.
The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.
If a guy’s got it, let him give it. I’m selling music, not prejudice.
I don’t meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.
I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.
If the bass plays the root, a pianist superimposes a Maj7 built on the 5th and the sax plays the 13th, will hot women notice?
I loved the feeling that I got singing.
The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.
If I’m not saying it in four choruses or less, then I’m not saying it.
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.
There’s a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There’s also happiness to it if you want to hear it. Blues was started by the slaves and I think everybody thinks that it all should be sad… even some of the slaves had fun with it.
At times in my life the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.
You explore beautiful songs and create your own interpretation of them.
It is this tendency to play with manic enthusiasm on every possible occasion that distinguishes the amateur Jazz musician from the professional.
I am only a mixture of countless influences and thanks to that I am able to find my own style of playing.
