Billy Crystal

It’s money. I remember it from when I was single!

My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it was all for my audience.

Forgive me if I don’t have the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

If the bass plays the root, a pianist superimposes a Maj7 built on the 5th and the sax plays the 13th, will hot women notice?

The Blues is never old.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

No, working is what will keep you alive.

You explore beautiful songs and create your own interpretation of them.

Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

The English pianist Alan Clare was once intrigued with a workman who was carrying out some remodeling inside his house. Clare was playing some recordings, and he began to notice that the workman was whistling along with whatever music he put on – Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, it didn’t seem to matter. Even if he hadn’t heard it before, he had the natural musical ability to follow a melody closely and almost automatically. Clare decided to give him a real test and dug up his recording of Art Tatum doing Tea For Two, with the ground-breaking chord changes Tatum introduced into the tune. The workman never lost a beat nor did he lay out for a bar or two to figure out what was going on. He tracked Tatum flawlessly through all his changes, and when the record ended, he spoke for the first time. He glanced at Clare and with classic English understatement said, ‘Tricky f**ker, ain’t he?’

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

Jazz isn’t a what, it’s a how.

Musicians should never forget we’re blessed. We have a special gift that people enjoy through us.

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.

The music scene is more competitive in the States.

I’ve seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if they think that I’m that good, thank them. Thank God for them. But I don’t think so.