Hunter S. Thompson

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

Jazz is an art that makes a person completely naked.

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.

The truth is I never gave it much thought. I just played what I had to play.

No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

Dance music-as I keep saying, you can dance to a windshield wiper… a windshield wiper that’s fairly steady gives you a beat and all you need is an out-of-tune playing ‘Melancholy Baby’ and you’ve got dance music.

I do the best I can with any instrument I get attracted to. But they’re just tools in order for you to express yourself and that’s really the upshot of it.

In Kansas City joints ran 9pm-5am. Pay was a $1.25 a night but somebody special like Count Basie could command $1.50.

To this day, I don’t like people walking on stage not looking good. You have to look good. If you feel special about yourself then you’re going to play special.

It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.

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

You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.

Music gives us a lot of things and it only wants one thing back… your attention.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.