Dexter Gordon

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillow.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition. If you don’t understand what it’s about, you’re depriving yourself of being really able to communicate this poem.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition.

If you can’t play the blues, you might as well hang it up.

If you can’t play the Blues you might as well hang it up.

Music is a reservoir… of sounds.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.

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

Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.

I feel like….Music is the – it’s the answer. It’s the reason.

You can’t rehearse a blues darlin’.

I do Jazz, Blues, Country and so forth. I do them all like a good utility man.

I’ve always had a deep love of live performance, it’s when I feel most alive.

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

Jazz has always been a man telling the truth about himself.

A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!

Your sound is you and what you really feel inside.

Jazz is such a powerful cultural statement that it’s almost as if it’s intertwined with society.

Musicians have a really big part to play in spreading messages because they’re able to reach a large portion of people on an emotional level. Artists reach people at their heart; it’s the only time we meet in one place and put our differences aside. When you’re in a forum listening to music, all you feel in that moment is love and the understanding.

Nothing is so well-prepared as a great spontaneous performance.