Big Nick Nicholas

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

I’ve had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I’ve had lots of guys call me up. I’ve gotten two or three commissions to write things. I’ve written lots of movie scores.

I’m now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

I became a singer to sing my songs. They’re so hip who else is going to sing them?

I don’t like to hear someone put down Dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.

Music is the shorthand of emotion

The first jazz I heard was Duke Ellington. I was learning to play classical music, but my teacher swapped out those lessons for jazz lessons because I had started adding grace notes to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

The Blues is never old.

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

You could still improvise but do it with lyrics.

Sounds of daily life are musical. I try to absorb the intricacies of sounds as if I were listening to music.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

The guitar chose me.