Maynard Ferguson

The day of the great jazz improviser who doesn’t know how to read music is over.

Life is a lot like jazz. It’s best when you improvise.

The guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It’s everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It’s everything, but it’s elusive.

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

After the music is over it’s gone in the air. You can never capture it again.

Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they’re trying to say with jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play. If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

There’s a way of playing safe, there’s a way of using tricks and there’s the way I like to play which is dangerously where you’re going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven’t created before.

And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you, if you

It’s not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.