Andy Dufresne

For me, music and life are all about style

[on Glastonbury] I started off the show and I completely messed up the music. And me, as you can imagine by this phone call, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. So it really put me into a slightly depressed state.

It’s either hip or it ain’t.

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.

True Jazz lovers understand the rhythms are infectious because they are the roots.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

To compose music, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.

[on Django Reinhardt] This was a man who changed my musical life by giving me a whole new perspective on the guitar and, on an even more profound level, on my relationship with sound…During my formative years, as I listened to Django’s records, especially songs like ‘Nuages’ that I would play for the rest of my life, I studied his technique. Even more, I studied his gentleness. I love the human sound he gave his acoustic guitar.

When rock came in, people didn’t know what to do. Even Sinatra, he didn’t know what to do. The music was changing. And it’s changing now.

Jazz – it takes passion to make it happen!

I’m meant to be an artist who can stand on my own. That’s my place; that’s what I’m supposed to do.

My music had roots which I’d dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

At times in my life the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.

It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically I love to talk just off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.