Alfred Lion

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.

Love is sweeping the country.

We all played bad before we played good.

I was walking down the street, and I saw a sewer digger on his lunch hour open his lunch pail, dig out a harmonica, knock out the cracker crumbs, and play a bunch of tunes on it. I was fascinated by that harmonica, so I stared the guy out of it. I just stared at him. He said, ‘Here, kid, take it. Get out of here.’

The reason I write music is that I feel it’s a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence.

The prospect of having to sit through one of Rachmaninov’s extended symphonies or piano concertos tends, quite frankly, to depress me. All those notes, and to what end?

Living is easy with eyes closed.

You must own it to play it.

All the music that was ever heard came from the inner silence in every musician.

As long as I can say what it is that I need to say, then I’ll fit whatever I’m trying to say around a melody.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.

It’s not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

The great jazz instrumentalists taught me how to sing and interpret a song. they showed me how a horn can have as much personality as an actor.

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.