Janis Siegel

I never really thought about becoming a professional musician.

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn’t about standing still and being safe.

People couldn’t give an F about how many cars you got any more. It’s about the way the music sounds, where you’re going, the experience you’re going to hanging out with your friends, the type clothes that you’re wearing – all of that’s art.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.

Gershwin was right in his time, at his time. Everybody else was behind.

People complain about the music industry, but this is a great time to be a musician.

Jazz will only go where we the composers and musicians take it. It is up to us.

We usually never got out of there before four or five o’clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically I love to talk just off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about.

I think that it is important to try to sound like someone, especially early in your development.

Jazz affirms the noblest aspirations of character, individual discipline, perseverance and innovation.

People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.

Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.