Boris Vian

You can’t seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues – you can’t seperate it. Because that’s where it all started, and that’s where it all come from – that’s where I learned to keep rhythm – in church.

I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: ‘Always on My Mind,’ the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.

Music is the most fantastic drug there is!

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

I try stuff. I synthesize what’s of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing very powerful emotions. That’s what draws people towards it.

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.

Jazz is a living music; since its beginning has expressed the feelings, dreams and hopes of the people.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Never lose the groove to find a note.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

To keep a band together you simply need a gimmick. The gimmick I use is to pay them money.