Louis Armstrong

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

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

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

You blows who you is.

You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means.

We all do ‘do, re, mi’ but you got to find the other notes yourself.

It’s difficult for me to dislike an artist, no matter what he’s creating.

I sing like I feel.

Jazz has the ability to absorb and transform influences from diverse musical styles.

A drummer has to be kind-hearted.

It’s not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

It became a kind of a game, to remember the things that had happened five minutes ago. I would start making notes about the things I was doing, on an instrument that was foreign to me, the guitar, so it was just a fun way of doing cognitive therapy. I was none the wiser to it until I began to improve and my ability to speak began to come back.

Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.

When you sing, always tell the truth.

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don’t learn something every day, you know what I think? It’s a day lost. Now, I don’t practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I’m doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.

It’s up to the individual to keep up with the times.

Once we’re inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

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

To work is to feel alive.

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe I’m honest.

I never really thought about becoming a professional musician.