Dexter Gordon

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.

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

Jazz to me is a living music. It’s a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.

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

What I’m doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word – I love it.

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

Music should not have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that is required to sound like jazz.

I gave it my absolute everything I had in that howl at the start of the song. And then B. B. King opened up his mouth and I felt like a girl. We had learned and absorbed, but the more we tried to be like B.B., the less convincing we were.

Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn’t, I don’t really see a point to it.

As soon as it was understood that we could handle things in our own way, it was the thrill of my life to walk out on that stage with people just hemming the band in.

Music is interior decoration.

I’m believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a ‘universal musical mind.’

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

People will hire you and then tell you not to do what you were doing when they heard you.

[Stratocaster vs Les Paul] It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things that you can distract and abuse. You can’t do that with a Les Paul. It’s too delicate. It’s got a very delicate tone; most people don’t ever realize that because they are plugged into monstrous amplifiers which completely, instantaneously covers up the unique sound quality it has. All those years of development go straight out the window when you overload the amp.

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.

I have a sense of the importance of music and how powerful it is to bring people together.

That’s where I heard feedback first – from Les Paul. Also vibratos – even before B.B. King, you know. I’ve traced a hell of a lot of rock and roll, little riffs and things, back to Les Paul – it’s all there. I mean, he’s the father of it all: multi-tracking and everything else. If it hadn’t been for him, there wouldn’t have been anything really.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

I’ve noticed that the more adventurous and in that mode that I am, it seems that the more the audience really likes it.

It’s not that you want to sing, it’s that you have to sing.