Dave Holland

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

Just allow your feelings to go with the music and you’ll find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.

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

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can’t define it beyond that.

Audiences are smart. They are not going to come out to see you unless you are honest.

I’m trying to get people to see that we are our brother’s keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

[On urging Nyro to tell Barbara Streisand that ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ had been personally written for her] It’s not a big lie.

Jazz improvisation is an elusive genius.

I hope my recordings of my own works won’t inhibit other people’s performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn’t always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn’t have a choice.

Jazz music is the power of now.

I sing like I feel.

[on Prince] I learned about music that didn’t have any barriers or any kind of, like, containment. I learned about wild, crazy topics and ways to express yourself that had never been written in quite that way before. I learned that a human being could be able to defy all stereotypes, and be the epitome of badassness.

Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.

Hipness is not a state of mind, it’s a fact of life.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.