The time is now.
I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it.
I am a devout musician.
Once I could play what I heard inside me, that’s when I was born.
It’s not all smoke and mirrors. Some of it comes from books.
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.
You’ve got to learn your instrument.
I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.
If you’re going to make a mistake, make it loud so everybody else sounds wrong.
Ahhh – those Jazz guys are just makin’ that stuff up!
I still love the whole history of Jazz. The old things sound better than ever.
Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.
I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That’s the point now isn’t it?
I don’t want to sing anything that doesn’t come real.
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.
Eliminating the piano means that I’ve always worked closer with the bass than most players.
Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of half-fast.
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.
Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That’s why I wanted the clarinet.
Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists.
A guy is influenced by hundreds of people and things, and all show up in his work. To fasten on any one or two is ridiculous. I will say one thing, though. Lennie Tristanos early records impressed me tremendously. Tunes like Tautology, Marshmallow, and Fishin Around. I heard the fellows in his group building their lines with a design and general structure that was different from anything Id ever heard in jazz.
