Louis Armstrong

Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.

I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.

Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.

Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of half-fast.

Jazz to me is a living music. It’s a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.

Jazz music has become academic. Sometimes that doesn’t feel right to me.

Don’t say Aretha is making a comeback, because I’ve never been away!

I wrote “Pilot of My Destiny” because of my love of flying. The fact that my brother is a pilot inspired me to write it. I call him pilot. He calls me copilot.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

Music is a calling that you must bring your best to, whether listening, practicing or performing.

For me, I started on a Les Paul and went through years of playing other guitars and just came back full circle to what was more natural to me.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Music is what I hear and something that I live by.

When Bird came on the scene, it was shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark and then there was light.

It’s all music.

I try stuff. I synthesize what’s of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.