Jimmy Smith

Everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

Choosing people to be on your ‘Sammy Hagar and Friends’ record, you’re going, ‘I’ve got so many friends.’ And so many friends have called me up and said, ‘Come on dude, why didn’t you ask me to be on the record?’ I’m going, ‘Damn, I forgot.’ I really did.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.

I really feel like I made it a great record. I really feel good about it. In this day and age to make a record that you say, ‘This is different,’ that’s a tough nut. I did it by accident but it got done. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know how to do it.

It’s a matter of who would be right for each song. Mickey Hart for ‘All We Need is An Island’ – he’s the only guy I know who has Tahitian drums and every kind of drum on the planet.

Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.

I gave it my absolute everything I had in that howl at the start of the song. And then B. B. King opened up his mouth and I felt like a girl. We had learned and absorbed, but the more we tried to be like B.B., the less convincing we were.

As far as music school goes, I walked through Berkelee one time.

You’ve got to be willing to put stuff on the line, otherwise it doesn’t have much meaning.

The music scene is more competitive in the States.

A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside… I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

First I was working on classical music that didn’t move me at all. I hated it. So I decided to discover the kinds of classical music that did move me—like Chopin, Satie, Beethoven, and certain Mozart songs. Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy and it made me feel something. That’s when I realized music was inside me.

Man, you tell a story.

There is two kinds of music, the good and the bad. I play the good kind.

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument. This is a comprehensive technique . . . a feeling for the keyboard that will allow you to transfer any emotional utterance into it. What has to happen is that you develop a comprehensive technique and then say, forget that. I’m just going to be expressive through the piano.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

Dizzy used to tell me I’m playing too hard. He’d say to not give everything. Miles told me that too.

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.

Words are the children of reason and therefore can’t translate the feeling of Jazz because they’re not part of it.

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.