Let my children have music.
I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.
I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.
In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.
I’m too busy playing. When I’m playing I don’t pay attention to who’s listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don’t listen to one instrument; you listen to music.
I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn’t only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.
Just because I’m playing jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions.
I bought my first electric guitar when I moved to Memphis; a Gibson with a DeArmond pickup which I used with a small Gibson amplifier.
Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.
As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.
I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.
Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.
Im using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.
Jazz is not gonna be a dinosaur and stay around in one form.
What kills me is that everybody thinks I like Jazz.
I’m creating music – it doesn’t matter if anyone else likes it.
Jazz music can relax, soothe and uplift the mind when you absorb it.
I like to know for whom I’m writing – it makes the composition easier to do.
Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.
Jazz translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners.
I don’t like recording studios – except my own, which is just a little room above the garage.
I still love the whole history of Jazz. The old things sound better than ever.
