Irving Berlin

Talent is only the starting point.

Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.

My style is to just play. The more “live” you capture your music-the more unthought-out-the more magical it is.

My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I’ve never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I’ve wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn’t work.

I can’t listen to music too often. It affects your nerves, makes you want to say stupid nice things and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell.

Give it a good go, try to have fun at it, try to pass on some good notes and some good sounds to your fans, and I don’t think you will have wasted your time.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

Once you start collecting records you learn more and more about Jazz and Blues.

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

Music is the tool to express life – and all that makes a difference.

If a jazz player is really playing, the classical player will have to respect him.

A drummer has to be kind-hearted.

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

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.