Jackie Mclean

From hard rhythms of Be-bop, the mellow harmonies of Cool, to atonal forays of Free and the Straight Ahead delivery of Modern, it’s all Jazz.

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.

The secret is keeping busy, and loving what you do.

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and be yawning your head off.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

Music is an addiction.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

As a little kid, blues meant hope, excitement, pure emotion. Blues were about feelings. They seem to bring out the feelings of the artist and they brought out my feelings as a kid. They made me wanna move, or sing, or pick up Reverend’s guitar and figure out how to make those wonderful sounds.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel.

To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel not the way others think you should feel.

The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, ‘Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.

When you make a sound, it carries on to infinity. Sound is a vibration. Vibration is energy. All of that survives in space long after we’re dead. When I walk on stage at the Wiener Staatsoper, I can feel the footsteps of Chopin and Rachmaninov.