McCoy Tyner

I love to hear the note sing.

Bass players are always the intellectual kind, but nobody knows it.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

Miles Davis and John Coltrane were so cool, if alive today global warming wouldn’t be an issue.

Everyone is working who should be.

I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn’t making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don’t understand the part of money in running a band.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

During these years I began to feel an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum.

Players are coming from other backgrounds: rock, folk, ethnic music. It’s changing Jazz for the better.

No, working is what will keep you alive.

If I could read it, I could play it.

You could still improvise but do it with lyrics.

There’s always this sound out there that’s just a little beyond my reach and that just sort of keeps me going.

I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.

I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.