Dr Lonnie Smith

There are notes between notes, you know.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

When you listen to someone improvise, the notes that are played are only half the story.

And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.

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

What we do as artists is a combination of experience and imagination. How that creeps into your work is not so linear.

I’m fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.

Jazz music is the power of now.

We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don’t know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.

A Jazz musician is supposed to find his voice, find his niche and do his thing.

And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.

You can’t rehearse a blues darlin’.

Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life.

If there is no dance, there is not music.

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