Big Nick Nicholas

A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!

Jazz can only enhance the Classical side and Classical can only enhance the Jazz side.

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat.

Jazz without the Blues is like BBQ without the sauce.

Good music is good music and everything else can go to hell.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

The blues comes right back to a person’s feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don’t know nothing about the blues, please believe me.

Dizzy used to tell me I’m playing too hard. He’d say to not give everything. Miles told me that too.

After you’ve done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.

I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It’s not that I don’t want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.

You’re just a little too hip for the room. It’s not good to be too hip because two hips make an ass.

I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it.

Practice as if you are the worst, play as if you are the best!

I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.