Cole Porter

Jazz is so incestuous that it’s starting to kill itself.

Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave it alone.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

Jazz is not to be sliced into bites by mass marketing geniuses who assume we are mindless cattle.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

Being a musician is what I do, but it’s not what I am.

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

Music is to the soul what water is to the body.

If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.