Ann Hampton Callaway

I’ll keep evolving and put that into my songs.

[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.

I don’t have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapy is in art.

I’ve had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I’ve had lots of guys call me up. I’ve gotten two or three commissions to write things. I’ve written lots of movie scores.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.

I’ll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I’d never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I’d never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn’t much like it at first.

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.

The jazziest American contribution to the vocabulary of English is Jazz itself.

Django was the definitive genius on the guitar, and the depth of his gift was so spectacular.

Just because I’m playing jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions.

Surrender your whole being to a note and gravity disappears.

All musicians stimulate each other. The vibrations get scattered around.

People will hire you and then tell you not to do what you were doing when they heard you.

Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.

Jazz musician is a combination entertainer, poet, singer, educator, student, artist, seducer and all-round good fellow.