Lionel Hampton

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

Music was our wife and we loved her. We stayed with her, clothed her and put diamond rings on her hands.

Working with Benny was important for me and for black musicians in general.

The secret is keeping busy, and loving what you do.

Black and white players hadn’t appeared together in public before Teddy Wilson and I began working with B.G.

Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid.

Well if I could play like Wynton Marsalis, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.

Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid.

You don’t have to live the blues to play the blues.

Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there’s no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window.

I am attracted to Jazz music for the idea of being in the moment and communicating to people spontaneously.

Never lose the groove to find a note.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

Jazz can only enhance the Classical side and Classical can only enhance the Jazz side.

Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won’t do much because of my age.

There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.