Dave Holland

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

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 let my body play what’s in my heart. I play life instead of notes. I play what I lived.

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.

Jazz is a living music; since its beginning has expressed the feelings, dreams and hopes of the people.

I’m not playing for other musicians. We’re trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We’ll keep him happy.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

Back in college, when I got kicked out of school, I was still in school, I’d just written the song that got me my record deal. If I hadn’t gotten kicked out of school I wouldn’t be where I am now. Three months after that, I got my record deal and the rest is history.

Oh, my darling, it’s incredible, that someone so unforgettable should think I am unforgettable, too.

I’m not like a legend that – so I’m sort of in the middle in this sort of gray area where, you know, I’m creating music, and I’m not saying there isn’t an audience, because there is; because all of those people go out and spend $80 to $150 on a concert ticket.

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

I don’t meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.

I used to play – when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.