John Erskine

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues’, they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

I would’ve loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn’t good enough.

I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it’s about feeling more than being perfect.

Anyone who doesn’t give [his debut album, The College Dropout] a perfect score is lowering the integrity of the magazine

The true artform is being a human being.

Music’s been around a long time, and there’s going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it’s a big record, that’s the frosting on the cake, but music’s the main meal.

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know

I never heard of a Jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do… play for the walls?

It’s not all smoke and mirrors. Some of it comes from books.

I didn’t need to worry about keys, chords, melody if I had that emotion that brought tears and laughter to people’s hearts.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.

Play what you know and then play above that.

Jazz musicians have some outlaw in them somewhere.

My improvisations are a beguiling mixture of the vertical and the horizontal.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.