Aretha Franklin

I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.

Falling out of love is like losing weight. It’s a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.

Let’s start with the church. As you know, it’s my background, it’s a natural setting for me and it’s definitely my roots.

Don’t say Aretha is making a comeback, because I’ve never been away!

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like.

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker’s next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?

What we play is life.

One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.

I don’t compose. I assemble materials.

Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists.

He almost adds a Chet-like sound to it.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it’s like the human voice

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

Nobody has ever been able to define Jazz satisfactorily. This is probably because anyone who was capable of doing so never really wanted to, knowing how much you would have to leave out of the definition.

Black and white players hadn’t appeared together in public before Teddy Wilson and I began working with B.G.

If you want to make money in music, get into the band uniform business.