Chuck Berghofer

I have younger friends who don’t work and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

Leo wanted me to be partners with him – for it to be the Fender guitar: the Les Paul Fender. When he approached me with the idea, he brought over a guitar and he gave it to me and I have it here. And I thought, if I’m gonna do this I’m going to go with the biggest company in the world: Gibson. Why should I fool around with some guy who is not a musician – I should go to the Gibson people.

Music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists at the time it is created.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

I learn something new every day.

The Blues and Jazz will live forever. So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

Jazz has always been a man telling the truth about himself.

They’re not particular about whether you’re playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy’s playing blues like we play, he’s in high school. When he starts playing jazz it’s like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

Love songs last because they are about feelings that don’t change.

We may not be changing the world dramatically, but we’re improving it one note at a time.