Art Blakey

Music washes away the dust of every day life.

You can’t seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues – you can’t seperate it. Because that’s where it all started, and that’s where it all come from – that’s where I learned to keep rhythm – in church.

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.

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.

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.

I don’t want to sing anything that doesn’t come real.

The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.

I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.

For me, there wasn’t a line between working and getting paid or simply playing for fun.

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.

All the music that was ever heard came from the inner silence in every musician.

If I don’t learn something new every day, it’s a day lost

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton’s and couldn’t play, you might get your ass kicked.

If the audience doesn’t hear what is going on, is it going on?

To compose music, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.

When rock came in, people didn’t know what to do. Even Sinatra, he didn’t know what to do. The music was changing. And it’s changing now.

I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That’s when I was born.

Everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

When it comes to music, don’t lie to yourself; just tell yourself the truth.

Sound is the first thing that we tune into.