Les Baxter

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

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Your accompanist has a lot to do with how you sing, so experiment and choose your partner wisely.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

You have to sound sad first, then maybe later you can sound good.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

I didn’t know the right names for anything at first, but I knew what knocked me out. Changes… man I dug.

[In 1972] At the moment, we’re getting the same thrill from seeing the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Jo Jo Gunne, and Judee Sill happen… It’s as hard to do it with Jackson Browne as it was to do it with Joni five years ago.

Bird said he worked as dishwasher at Onyx Club on 52nd St. in the early 1940s just to hear Art Tatum play.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

Applause felt like approval and it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily.

You’ve got to learn your instrument.

The melody is generally what the piece is all about.

There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.

Life is a lot like jazz. It’s best when you improvise.