What we play is life.
Never play anything the same way twice.
I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.
If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.
Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.
If I don’t practice for a day, I know it… for two days, the critics know it… three days, the public knows it.
There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.
Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.
Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.
We may not be changing the world dramatically, but we’re improving it one note at a time.
Music has to be accessible.
When you hear somebody with balls, that’s me.
Music should never be harmless.
And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.
The hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know: You feel this, you play this.
I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. ‘Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.
Jazz is rhythm and meaning.
No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.
Music can’t save the world, but can make one a little calmer.
I’ll keep evolving and put that into my songs.
Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I’m trying to do more. When I’m singing, I don’t want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
