Dewey Redman

The reason I write music is that I feel it’s a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence.

What I learned the most from Prince was putting art first, being creatively ambitious, and putting creativity at the forefront of what I do.

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.

What are you going to do when you love music? You can’t stop.

My fans are the best in the world! They’ve grown up with me and stayed with me through this entire journey.

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

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

The first jazz I heard was Duke Ellington. I was learning to play classical music, but my teacher swapped out those lessons for jazz lessons because I had started adding grace notes to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe I’m honest.

I would like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.

Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.

I always play what I feel. I always feel like me, but I’m a different me every day. I get ideas from everything. A big color, the sound of water and wind, or a flash of something cool. Playing is like life. Either you feel it or you don’t.

From hard rhythms of Be-bop, the mellow harmonies of Cool, to atonal forays of Free and the Straight Ahead delivery of Modern, it’s all Jazz.

To me, the guitar cuts through. It carries more than the organ, but the organ has got more guts.