Max Roach

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.

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.

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

Jazz music is collective creativity.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

To play piano is a significant part of my life, my existence. It fulfills a very physical and spiritual need for me.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

I’ve always liked the Freddie King/B. B. King rich tone, and at the same time, I like the manic Buddy Guy/Otis Rush Strat tone. So I’m always caught in the middle of the Gibson and Fender sounds. If I’m playing my black [Fender] Strat, and I’m in the middle of a blues, I kind of wish I was playing a [Gibson] Les Paul. Then again, if I was playing a Les Paul, the sound would be great, but I’d be saying, “Man, I wish I had the Stratocaster neck!”

Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it’s in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance.

A great song can pull me out of a slump and lighten my heart.

People now have been conditioned to believe they should only buy one song at a time, that nobody can make an entire record that would merit you paying, you know, $7, $8, $10 when CDs in the ’90s were $18, $19 and people bought millions and millions and millions of them.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness—I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

The Jazz Age became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders.

I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.

Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.

The Blues and Jazz will live forever. So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out.

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.