Maxine Sullivan

A musician’s responsibility is to get as much of his art across to the public as possible.

There’s such a cynicism about the phrase ‘I laughed all the way to the bank.’ It’s as though money is what you’re doing, rather than playing music. If you’re playing a money game, why not get into banking?

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

Ahhh – those Jazz guys are just makin’ that stuff up!

A Jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.

Jazz music is an aural souvenir of mankind’s attempt to express the intangible, the heart, the soul, through art.

Once we’re inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

What I look for in concert is a connection with the audience.

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

I did go through a trial-and-error period where I tried out lots of different guitars, but within a couple of years I was right back to the Les Paul. From that point it’s stayed with me ever since. I have other guitars—and I love a lot of them—but I’m most at home on a Les Paul. It’s interesting: most of the time I would even rather make a Les Paul do the things those other guitars do. From the get-go, the Les Paul spoke to me.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

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.

Do it again on the next verse and people think you meant it.

Learn the tunes by playing the masters, learn expression by playing yourself.