It’s either hip or it ain’t.
There are no natural barriers. It’s all music.
Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.
Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.
Eliminating the piano means that I’ve always worked closer with the bass than most players.
Do it again on the next verse and people think you meant it.
Musicianship is using your two ears.
The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.
Music is the only language in which you cannot say anything sarcastic.
The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I’ll keep playing until I feel like I can’t.
Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.
The Blues contain so much joy and sadness at the same time.
It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave it alone.
Even if you have some brilliant jazz ideas, it’s going to be difficult to get them across unless you have 1-a distinctive sound or 2- a loud sound. These are musts.
You can’t listen to what people who aren’t musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don’t want to hear, ‘Your kid is ugly.’ But I knew the record was good and it would sell.
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
