Max Roach

In classical music, only two people are important, the composer and the conductor. Everybody else is a serf. In jazz, a thing of beauty is created collectively with everybody getting to express an idea. And that reflects what democratic society is – or should be.

Jazz music is collective creativity.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.

Jazz isn’t a what, it’s a how.

I’ve had a lot of things to be proud of in my life, but none more than the Jazz festival.

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

I like the music. I love it and live it in fact, but for me the business part just plain stinks.

Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.

Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.

I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.

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

The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.

In my family on my mother’s side we’re all church musicians first so I don’t remember a time when we weren’t doing something musical. My brothers and I sang in a little quartet, my aunts and uncles sang and my grandfather was a minister of music in our church, so walking and talking was like doing music for us.

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

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears to the eyes of woman.

The blues tells a story in itself. It can make you happy or give you a feeling to swing.