We’re here to have a ball.
A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.
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.
When it comes to music, don’t lie to yourself; just tell yourself the truth.
[On the word Jazz] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s only a word. What’s in a name? Nothing! Cats say, Call me Muhammed so-and-so. But what’s the difference? A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music. 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.
Music washes away the dust of every day life.
If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet.
It’s all music.
A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.
That’s where I heard feedback first from Les Paul. Also vibratos even before B.B. King, you know. I’ve traced a hell of a lot of rock and roll, little riffs and things, back to Les Paul it’s all there. I mean, he’s the father of it all: multi-tracking and everything else. If it hadn’t been for him, there wouldn’t have been anything really.
Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.
Even if people don’t understand the language that you’re singing in, they still know good music when they hear it.
Well if I could play like Wynton Marsalis, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
When I got pretty good I went on the road with a group. We starved.
A great song can pull me out of a slump and lighten my heart.
A good player can make any instrument sound good.
I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: ‘Always on My Mind,’ the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.
During these years I began to feel an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum.
Jazz is about being in the moment.
When Hank Jones had his night off, I would get somebody to take my place as intermission pianist and I’d play the show with Ella, so I would get a chance to play with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as well.
I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last 10 years.
