D C DowDell

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

My neighbors always listen to very hip Jazz… whether they like it or not.

10% of musicians make 90% of the money, while the remaining 90% of musicians make the 10% that’s left.

Play what you feel, feel what you play.

Miles Davis and John Coltrane were so cool, if alive today global warming wouldn’t be an issue.

A Jazz Diet will make you hipper, thinner, taller, smarter, richer, happier and more attractive to members of both sexes.

Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I thought of nothing else but rock ‘n’ roll; apart from sex and food and money–but that’s all the same thing, really.

As far as music school goes, I walked through Berkelee one time.

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

Jazz is a mental attitude rather than a style. It uses a certain process of the mind expressed spontaneously through some musical instrument. I’m concerned with retaining that process.

Jazz is not a what, it is a how.

What a fool I am to think my breaking heart could kid the moon.

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

It’s like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.

Music chooses her musicians.

Django Reinhardt was fantastic. he must have been playing all the time to be that good.

One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out.