Chico Hamilton

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.

I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy and Bird.

There’s always room for improvisation or changes of expression.

My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it was all for my audience.

I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.

My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.

You know the actor John Garfield? In one movie he walked up to this train station, the ticket booth, and the guy says, ‘Yes, where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I want a ticket to nowhere.’ I thought: that’s it. The freedom to do that. I want a ticket to nowhere.

Spontaneously composed music is a counterpoint that has its own rules based on a natural order and intuitive logic.

No, working is what will keep you alive.

The thing I always default to is that I’ll always be here to write songs.

I don’t have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapy is in art.

Music’s a good thing, it calm the beast in the man.

I’d rather be B.B. King. That’s the way I started. Let the heavy metal guys play heavy metal, let the others play the other… I try to do what I do better, not get away from it.

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn’t I couldn’t do my best.

We open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to arrive at something new and different.