Nicholas Payton

Silence is what makes music sexy. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

There’s so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

Jazz is not gonna be a dinosaur and stay around in one form.

My neighbors always listen to very hip Jazz… whether they like it or not.

The first time I went to Paris, it just felt like I was home. I didn’t question it.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

Well, for me it’s – music is the instrument of life.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues’, they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

Just because I’m playing Jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.

You gotta mean it and you gotta treat it gentle.

I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.

You have a mentor or teacher and you learn all he can show you.

I don’t really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I’d like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.