Max Roach

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

Jazz music is collective creativity.

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 grabs you to the point where it never lets you go until the very last breath.

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

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Music washes away the dust of every day life.

A musician starting out today should get a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument.

If I don’t learn something new every day, it’s a day lost

In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions – one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.

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

I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It’s not that I don’t want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.

Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life.

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy and Bird.

It was in tune when I bought it.

I am the sum total of everything that I have experienced musically.

I have music inside me and I’m very lucky to be able to play music and that’s the way that I try to do it.

Miles Davis was a part of my life from 1947 on. I was born in 1941 and I first heard him in 1947 on a 78 rpm. And then I followed his career, starting with his first solo album in 1951. He was an icon and inspiration and a mentor to me.

I’m going to be on the road for the rest of my life.