Joe Pass

If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterward.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.

But the guitar, my lady, whether well played or badly played, well strung or badly strung, is pleasant to hear and listen to; being so easy to learn, it attracts the busiest of talented people and makes them put aside loftier occupations so that they may hold a guitar in their hands.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of Jazz.

[Ben Taylor] He is an interesting combination of the two of us. His voice box is more like mine but the way his tongue sits in his mouth, and the way he pronounces words, is just like James Taylor.

She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.

The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.

I’m trying to make music a sensual expression, not and academic experiment.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That’s why I wanted the clarinet.

My chops were not as fast… [but] I just learned more on what was in my mind than what was in my chops. I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it’s the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with twenty notes.

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

I started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that’s just the way it came out.

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.

That’s a great thing about jazz. We leave it a little space so that we have the opportunity to go where the moment takes us

If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.

When Bird came on the scene, it was shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark and then there was light.