Artie Shaw

No matter how carefully and assiduously and how deeply you bury shit, the American public will find it and buy it in large quantity, It’s true, absolutely true.

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijuana, and will expire on cocaine.

Shoot for the moon. If you miss you’ll still end up in the stars.

Somebody asked me once, ‘Do you think that swing will ever come back?’ And I said, ‘Do you think the 1938 Form will ever come back?’

Dance music-as I keep saying, you can dance to a windshield wiper… a windshield wiper that’s fairly steady gives you a beat and all you need is an out-of-tune playing ‘Melancholy Baby’ and you’ve got dance music.

‘Swing’ is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a ‘swing band’ in music.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at Jazz.

Jazz is the false liquidation of art, instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture.

Anytime you strike the drums, you have to be aware that you’re creating a musical event.

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

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 write about moments, and I don’t make blanket statements about anything because no one has all the answers; nobody’s come up with a foolproof way to do anything when it comes to emotions.

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

It is great to have your own label; you can cultivate your own artists… I’ve worked with pretty much everyone I wanted to.

I’ll keep evolving and put that into my songs.

With the birth of the first artist, came the inevitable afterbirth… the first critic

When you just get mixed up and there’s too much going on, then it’s time to pick up your guitar.

Ah music… a magic beyond all we do here!

What are you going to do when you love music? You can’t stop.

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.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.