Nat King Cole

Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you’ve got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.

I’m a musician at heart, I know I’m not really a singer. I couldn’t compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

Oh, my darling, it’s incredible, that someone so unforgettable should think I am unforgettable, too.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

We quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time!

If you dig it, do it. If you dig it a lot, do it again.

The true value of this music lies in an artist’s individual creativity and that unique process of expression which is Jazz.

You can’t seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues – you can’t seperate it. Because that’s where it all started, and that’s where it all come from – that’s where I learned to keep rhythm – in church.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.

I do Jazz, Blues, Country and so forth. I do them all like a good utility man.

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

It’s true I’ve always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

There is two kinds of music, the good and the bad. I play the good kind.

When rock music came in, I wasn’t bitter about it. I was puzzled.

What have I got? No looks, no money, no education… just talent.