George Gershwin

Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend.

When you want ’em you can’t get ’em, when you’ve got ’em, you don’t want ’em.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

I work very hard at being the best musician I can be because I love it.

What we play is life.

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

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

We don’t talk music. We just play.

The more you listen, the more your hear.

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

What I look for in concert is a connection with the audience.

Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.

Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.

Spontaneously composed music is a counterpoint that has its own rules based on a natural order and intuitive logic.

If you understood everything I say, you’d be me!

Music is to the soul what water is to the body.

Art [Blakey] would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.

Playing the guitar is like telling the truth – you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don’t have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don’t have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It’s you.