Dave Liebman

There is nothing new… everything has roots in the past.

Art is constant tension and release. That is where artists live, between the two or at times, submerged in either.

If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal.

Once you start collecting records you learn more and more about Jazz and Blues.

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

I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn’t only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.

I got a chance to listen to and watch Thelonious Monk and his quartet play two shows a night, for six weeks. It was a great education. There was my university, man.

If your dreams don’t scare you they’re not big enough!

Composing is a mindset, a part of who I am.

However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.

Music is a verb.

Living is easy with eyes closed.

I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.

At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres.

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

They told me to play what I felt. Hey, I’m a Jazz musician, that’s what I do.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.