Luis De Briçeño

[In 1972] At the moment, we’re getting the same thrill from seeing the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Jo Jo Gunne, and Judee Sill happen… It’s as hard to do it with Jackson Browne as it was to do it with Joni five years ago.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

For years the trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We starved.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

The true artform is being a human being.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

If I could read it, I could play it.

Ideologies separate us. Art brings us together.

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn’t only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

I have a nice car, a Mercedes. And then I have an old El Camino truck that I’m crazy about. I like to get in that truck and go up in the hills near where I live, in Vegas, and take my camera. That, to me, is Heaven, being out in nature, taking pictures of the wildlife.