D C DowDell

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

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

Jazz goes into my coffee in the morning, in my wine at night.

The true value of this music lies in an artist’s individual creativity and that unique process of expression which is Jazz.

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

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

Whenever there’s a change with Jazz and its aesthetics, it’s almost always reflected with a change in the culture.

I think you can play anything you wanna as long as you take the audience along with you.

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room – proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

[Ben Taylor] He is an interesting combination of the two of us. His voice box is more like mine but the way his tongue sits in his mouth, and the way he pronounces words, is just like James Taylor.

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

My improvisations are a beguiling mixture of the vertical and the horizontal.

And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.

Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.

I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.

Django was the definitive genius on the guitar, and the depth of his gift was so spectacular.

I’m now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

You give up your own personality when you imitate somebody.

The day of the great jazz improviser who doesn’t know how to read music is over.