Gerry Mulligan

I’ve always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.

I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it’s the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what’s available, what somebody happens to play for you.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

Jazz music is the real deal.

They’re not particular whether you’re playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance.

Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.

I want people to walk away with the same joy, hope and love that I put into my music.

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

It’s important to reflect on what made Jazz so special.

Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.

I play as I feel.

Music is a verb.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

There is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music.

If you listen to Donny Hathaway, he had a lot of jazz elements in the way he sang, … For me, the two styles borrow from each other so much that sometimes it’s hard for me to make a distinction. When you hear Lalah sing the combination, that’s when she really shines – when she’s allowed to dip into her jazz when she wants to and then get soulful and do the R ‘n’ B thing.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

I don’t like to hear someone put down Dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.