We’re here to have a ball.
If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet.
When it comes to music, don’t lie to yourself; just tell yourself the truth.
Music washes away the dust of every day life.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.
It takes an intelligent ear to listen to Jazz.
If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing.
Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last 10 years.
Practice as if you are the worst, play as if you are the best!
10% of musicians make 90% of the money, while the remaining 90% of musicians make the 10% that’s left.
You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.
And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.
Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.
I’m trying to make music a sensual expression, not and academic experiment.
I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.
We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.
The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
The whole concept for the Yeezus album is that we’re not going to be using CDs in the future and since this is the last time we’re going to see it, this is an open casket for the CD.
Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.
Players are coming from other backgrounds: rock, folk, ethnic music. It’s changing Jazz for the better.
