Cole Porter

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument.

Sounds of daily life are musical. I try to absorb the intricacies of sounds as if I were listening to music.

I think you have to leave a lot to the imagination!

There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead

I think I’ve tried to stay true to my music since the beginning. It’s kind of hard because of the access and technology but I just do what I do.

For a long time I wasn’t listening to music, to the rock and roll stuff on the radio, because it would cause me to get sweaty–it would bring back memories I didn’t want to know about, or I would get that feeling that I’m not alive ’cause I’m not making it. And if it was good, I hated it ’cause I wasn’t doing it. And if it was bad, I was furious ’cause I could’ve done it better…

Always look ahead, but never look back.

The guitar chose me.

If there is no dance, there is not music.

Jazz improvisation is the art of drawing without an eraser.

In my family on my mother’s side we’re all church musicians first so I don’t remember a time when we weren’t doing something musical. My brothers and I sang in a little quartet, my aunts and uncles sang and my grandfather was a minister of music in our church, so walking and talking was like doing music for us.

Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now.

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat.

When I achieved what I thought the musicians were trying to do, the sound sort of bloomed. When it’s right, everything is beautiful.

However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.