Harry Belafonte

The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know ? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

I try to teach by example and not force ideas on a young musician. We’re here to be part of a process of exchange.

Music is the shorthand of emotion

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.

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

Jazz stands for freedom.

And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they’re here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.

People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.

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

I would sit on the street corners in my hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, and I would play. And, generally, I would start playing gospel songs. People would come by on the street – you live in Time Square, you know how they do it – they would bunch up. And they would always compliment me on gospel tunes, but they would tip me when I played blues.

Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’ So hush little baby don’t you cry.

I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: ‘Always on My Mind,’ the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.