Stop before you’re done.
Play what you know and then play above that.
Music is an addiction.
Always look ahead, but never look back.
Music and life are all about style.
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. Thats a little bit too much.
It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.
I write songs about real things… The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.
I think I’ve tried to stay true to my music since the beginning. It’s kind of hard because of the access and technology but I just do what I do.
I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don’t like that. I listen to everything.
The weird thing about bass is the simplest stuff to do is the hardest.
I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.
I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.
Talk of God is most often in church. Is there a God outside of church? I hope so. But how should I know? How does anybody know?
Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.
Somebody asked me once, Do you think that swing will ever come back? And I said, Do you think the 1938 Form will ever come back?
As long as musicians have passion for spontaneity and creating something that’s never been before, Jazz will flourish.
Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.
It’s not all smoke and mirrors. Some of it comes from books.
I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.
There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.
