Annie Lennox

When you’re successful, things have a momentum and you can’t tell if you have created the momentum or it’s creating you.

I can play all I know in eight bars.

I could see the blues was about survival.

Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

I came from an era when we didn’t use electronic instruments. The bass wasn’t even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.

I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.

I was always exposed to music. Mom and dad would have the radio on constantly.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of Jazz.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass.

Every symphony, for example, is a sonata for orchestra; every string quartet is a sonata for four strings; every concerto a sonata for a solo instrument and orchestra.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

Composing makes me feel like I’ve finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.