Chet Baker

Well if I could play like Wynton, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.

What a fool I am to think my breaking heart could kid the moon.

You don’t know what love is, until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues, until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose.

He almost adds a Chet-like sound to it.

What a guy, what a fool am I, to think my breaking heart could kid the moon.

Well if I could play like Wynton Marsalis, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.

Jazz improvisation is the art of collective negotiated expression.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

The whole thing of being in music is not to control it but to be swept away by it.

When I got started in New York, if you were different from Miles and Dizzy it was very difficult.

Whenever there’s a change with Jazz and its aesthetics, it’s almost always reflected with a change in the culture.

Indian music is very soulful and the only other school that develops improv to the high degree you find in Jazz.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition. If you don’t understand what it’s about, you’re depriving yourself of being really able to communicate this poem.

I wasn’t interested in practicing Bach; I was too busy digging Horace Silver!

Do it again on the next verse and people think you meant it.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write to ultimately be at peace with himself.

When you listen to someone improvise, the notes that are played are only half the story.

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

I want the music to connect to people; reach people every time I perform.

Albert King wasn’t my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues!

If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.