Bill Evans

Jazz isn’t a what, it’s a how.

Jazz is not a what, it is a how.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable.

Words are the children of reason and therefore can’t translate the feeling of Jazz because they’re not part of it.

Especially, I want my work-and the trios if possible-to sing.

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

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.

We don’t talk music. We just play.

I could see the blues was about survival.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

Jazz isn’t a what, it’s a how.

Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.

A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don’t think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact. …. Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there.

I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.

When I decided that I wanted to be a Jazz musician, I knew that it was about improvising.

Your humanity is your instrument.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Music was our wife, and we loved her. And we stayed with her, and we clothed her, and we put diamond rings on her hands.

Do not fear mistakes, there are none.