Les Paul

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

It’s not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

One minute we’re over here, the next minute we’re doing something completely different. But it’s interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn’t do with analog.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can’t go there. So I’m back to Count Basie lifting his hand. And I find you can stop that show with one note just like you can with a hundred.

I am very aware that so little has happened to the electric guitar from the time that it was conceived to now; where there are so little changes made where there should be drastic changes made. If we were to put our heads together and start thinking about modern technology we would be much more advantaged with the electric guitar than we are. I think that we’ve been stagnant for many years.

Instrumental music can spread the international language.

Jazz musicians have some outlaw in them somewhere.

All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it… for two days, the critics know it… three days, the public knows it.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

There are notes between notes, you know.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

If a guy’s got it, let him give it. I’m selling music, not prejudice.

We didn’t have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free

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

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

I love it when people hear my music but can’t figure out what instrument I’m playing.

Actually, I think the more Ben [Taylor] sings, the less like James he sounds.

I don’t intend to be a performing flea anymore. I was the dreamweaver, but although I’ll be around I don’t intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don’t want to die at 40.

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.