Bill Evans

It bugs me when people try to analyze Jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not, it’s feeling.

Music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists at the time it is created.

I like people who have worked long and hard, developing through introspection and dedication.

Jazz is not a what, it is a how.

I’m believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a ‘universal musical mind.’

Jazz isn’t a what, it’s a how.

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.

I say, ‘Play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years’.

Music gives us a lot of things and it only wants one thing back… your attention.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.

I can play all I know in eight bars.

There’s so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.

I don’t pop my cork for every man I see.

I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is thinking of what to play.

Keep on listening and tapping your feet.

If a jazz player is really playing, the classical player will have to respect him.

The trio is the biggest sound you can have with the smallest unit.

The other day I came across a recording I made of a night at my apartment when I was living with Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan had been around earlier and we were all passing around the guitar. Whenever it came to my turn I would run into the kitchen and say I’d left the coffee on the stove or something. Shyness. Scared to perform.

Have you ever wondered why young people take to music like fish to water? Maybe it’s because music is fun, plain and simple.