Dave Holland

Jazz has such great feeling and emotional content it really doesn’t require technical understanding.

I think music needs to be of its time and speak to that time.

I think that what is important is that the music be honest and direct and that it is relevant to today.

Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.

I’m an interpreter of stories. When I perform it’s like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

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.

I’ve always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn’t have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.

The emotional reaction is all that matters.

Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.

Les Paul was one of the great innovators of the early electric guitar, and he made some fantastic guitar records. To me, Les Paul is very much it.

I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last 10 years.

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

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

When you make a sound, it carries on to infinity. Sound is a vibration. Vibration is energy. All of that survives in space long after we’re dead. When I walk on stage at the Wiener Staatsoper, I can feel the footsteps of Chopin and Rachmaninov.

Breathe…. breathe a lot!

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