D C DowDell

It is better to be felt than to be heard.

Music is what feelings sound like.

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

From hard rhythms of Be-bop, the mellow harmonies of Cool, to atonal forays of Free and the Straight Ahead delivery of Modern, it’s all Jazz.

Jazz improvisation is the art of collective negotiated expression.

Practice as if you are the worst, play as if you are the best!

Music and life are all about style.

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

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

In Kansas City joints ran 9pm-5am. Pay was a $1.25 a night but somebody special like Count Basie could command $1.50.

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

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

I am not interested in compromising my music to make it palatable to an assumed sub-standard mass.

There is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music.

Actually, I think the more Ben [Taylor] sings, the less like James he sounds.

I don’t worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about Jazz.

I worked until I could play and do changes at any tempo in any key and said ‘What else is there?’ Now I’m finding out.

You know the actor John Garfield? In one movie he walked up to this train station, the ticket booth, and the guy says, ‘Yes, where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I want a ticket to nowhere.’ I thought: that’s it. The freedom to do that. I want a ticket to nowhere.

I’m glad I don’t have perfect pitch because it can drive you crazy.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

Jazz can only enhance the Classical side and Classical can only enhance the Jazz side.