Erroll Garner

I love it. When they stop imitating me then I’ll start wondering where I’m going wrong. Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.

I always play what I feel. I always feel like me, but I’m a different me every day. I get ideas from everything. A big color, the sound of water and wind, or a flash of something cool. Playing is like life. Either you feel it or you don’t.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society to express yourself freely and creatively.

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker’s next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?

I cringed when I heard myself described as a Jazz singer. I’ve always thought of myself as a Jazz vocalist.

Of course there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

I don’t have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapy is in art.

You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

It’s always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don’t know where it comes from, it’s just there and I don’t question it.

There’s so many ways you can hit one note.

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.

Most of the stuff I learned to play, I learned in high school. I had a band in high school, a jazz-fusion thing, and I was the keyboard player. I was interested in how the instruments worked and the theory behind playing with them.

The arranger doesn’t get any royalties, but I had so much fun doing it.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

Being a musician is what I do, but it’s not what I am.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it’s like the human voice