Cab Calloway

90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody’s interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.

Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

You hear about the Duke Ellingtons, the Jimmie Luncefords, and the Fletcher Hendersons, but people sometimes forget that jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres.

We usually never got out of there before four or five o’clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

Jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

In order to be honest with myself, I have to reveal more of who I am. This is a part of the improv process.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

I don’t like to look back because the whole point in Jazz is doing it now.

Good music is good music and everything else can go to hell.

It’s like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.

Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.

[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.

When I write songs that touch on social relevance, all you have to do is pick up a newspaper.

[In 1972] At the moment, we’re getting the same thrill from seeing the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Jo Jo Gunne, and Judee Sill happen… It’s as hard to do it with Jackson Browne as it was to do it with Joni five years ago.

It’s the same for listeners. If you can’t stand your girlfriend, can’t take it anymore, put on your headphones and escape into another world.

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

When you are studying Jazz best thing to do is listen to records and live music as much you can and absorb everything.

I was a nerd academically. But I was also an athlete and a musician. I never wanted to be shut out of any situation. I think it was that more than anything.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.