Bill Evans

I always like people who have developed long and hard, particularly through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think that what they arrive at is, usually, deeper and more beautiful than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.

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

You can’t explain Jazz to anyone without losing the experience because it’s feeling, not words.

Despite the fact I’m a professional performer, it’s true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to. You hear musicians playing with great fluidity and complete conception early on, and you don’t have that ability. I didn’t. I had to know what I was doing. And ultimately it turned out that these people weren’t able to carry their thing very far. I found myself being more attracted to artists who have developed through the years and become better and deeper musicians.I believe in things that are developed through hard work.

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

It’s always Jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of clothes she’s the same old broad.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

[On the word Jazz] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s only a word. What’s in a name? Nothing! Cats say, Call me Muhammed so-and-so. But what’s the difference? A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music. 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’m not really on a mission to tell anybody anything. I’d rather be figured out.

I got a chance to listen to and watch Thelonious Monk and his quartet play two shows a night, for six weeks. It was a great education. There was my university, man.

Everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

He knows I rip him off every day. He’s the godfather for me. Nobody can say they aren’t influenced by what Stevie Wonder has done.

She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.

Musicians tell me, if what I’m doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

Jazz musician is a combination entertainer, poet, singer, educator, student, artist, seducer and all-round good fellow.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time.

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public’s going to like, anyway.

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.