What we play is life.
I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.
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.
Never play anything the same way twice.
There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.
We all do ‘do, re, mi’ but you got to find the other notes yourself.
Your sound is you and what you really feel inside.
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
On my album Here, that’s the first time that I’ve really understood how I could put all the things that were happening in the world and in my life and in our lives as just human beings into one body that was just so powerful and really had a perspective. That was an opening for me and I think that naturally, there is just so much to talk about. I don’t see me getting quiet anytime soon.
Musicians need enough experience to develop a vocabulary.
I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
Our music artistry should not be disconnected from our lives or ourselves.
Swing is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a swing band in music.
By giving the public a rich and full melody, distinctly arranged and well played, all the time creating new tone colors and patterns, I feel we have a better chance of being successful. I want a kick to my band, but I don’t want the rhythm to hog the spotlight.
You can’t sing about love unless you know about it.
I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.
Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what theyre trying to say with jazz. You dont need any prologues, you just play. If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.
[on Django Reinhardt] By far the most astonishing guitar player ever Django was quite superhuman, there’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player
I have always seen Jazz as innovative.
