Let my children have music.
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.
Good Jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms and yells. Fine Jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great Jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of Jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra runaround the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.
Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker’s next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?
I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.
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.
Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know ? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.
All musicians stimulate each other. The vibrations get scattered around.
I guess you can look at me, and tell I’m the old man. My name is BB King.
Playing bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
I don’t care for the music when they’re talking bad about women because I think women are God’s greatest gift to the planet – I just like music.
A musician’s responsibility is to get as much of his art across to the public as possible.
Miles Davis and John Coltrane were so cool, if alive today global warming wouldn’t be an issue.
If I don’t learn something new every day, it’s a day lost
One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.
What’s tied Jazz together is its foundation in the Blues, a reliance on group interplay and the unique phenomenon of spontaneous improvisation.
Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.
I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.
When you listen to someone improvise, the notes that are played are only half the story.
Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made Three O’ Clock Blues’, they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.
If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet.
