Claudia Acuna

If I can’t feel it, I don’t want to sing it.

First I was working on classical music that didn’t move me at all. I hated it. So I decided to discover the kinds of classical music that did move me—like Chopin, Satie, Beethoven, and certain Mozart songs. Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy and it made me feel something. That’s when I realized music was inside me.

No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

The sign of a mature musician is knowing what not to play.

Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.

I love it. When they stop imitating me then I’ll start wondering where I’m going wrong. Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.

Music doesn’t have to hop to be hip, as long as it swings it sings.

What kills me is that everybody thinks I like Jazz.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

Jazz without the Blues is like BBQ without the sauce.

Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.

It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.

The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.