Ella Fitzgerald

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

I sing like I feel.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside… I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do.

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the night, or you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them…

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

I am an improviser, I improvise music. Whatever you want to call it, it’s all improvised music. I may capture it and go back and write it down for others, but it was originally improvised.

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

Jazz music has always made powerful statements about freedom, creativity and personal identity.

I think music needs to be of its time and speak to that time.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

Start well and end well. The middle will look after itself.

Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet, put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

I haven’t a great Jazz band and I don’t want one.

Surrender your whole being to a note and gravity disappears.

The weird thing about bass is the simplest stuff to do is the hardest.

If I can’t feel it, I don’t want to sing it.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.