Lester Young

You have a mentor or teacher and you learn all he can show you.

Jazz is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

The reward for playing Jazz is playing Jazz.

I don’t consider myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can’t develop any further.

Music is the tool to express life – and all that makes a difference.

It’s all music.

When you just get mixed up and there’s too much going on, then it’s time to pick up your guitar.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

There’s always room for improvisation or changes of expression.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

We usually never got out of there before four or five o’clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line.

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.

I’m going to be on the road for the rest of my life.

Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.