Dexter Gordon

Jazz is a beautiful word. I love it.

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

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

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

The music scene is more competitive in the States.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.

To compose music, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

This be an empty world without the blues.

I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever.

Music opens up minds to dream great dreams about where you can go and what you can do.

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room – proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

To play piano is a significant part of my life, my existence. It fulfills a very physical and spiritual need for me.

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world’s great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province… Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated.

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

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

Django was the definitive genius on the guitar, and the depth of his gift was so spectacular.

I just fell in love with the integrity of the music and that was it.

I always liked the steel guitar. I also love the guys that play the bottleneck. But I could never do it; I never made it do what I want. So every time I would pick up the guitar, I’d shake my hand and trill it a bit. For some strange reason my ears would say to me that sounds similar to what those guys were doing. I can’t pick up the guitar now without doing it. So that’s how I got into making my sound. It was nothing pretty. Just trying to please myself. I heard that sound.