Ornette Coleman

Musicians tell me, if what I’m doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

The idea is more important than the style you’re playing in.

The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know ? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

Dog spelled backward is God. That’s pretty heavy.

I am inclined to just write music and not worry about what people can or can’t do.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

I’ve had a lot of things to be proud of in my life, but none more than the Jazz festival.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I remember Glenn Miller coming to me once, before he had his own band, saying, How do you do it? How do you get started? It’s so difficult. I told him, I don’t know but whatever you do don’t stop. Just keep on going.

We all played bad before we played good.

Art is a subject that is inundated with opinions. In fact, that’s all it is about is opinions.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

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

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

Music opens up minds to dream great dreams about where you can go and what you can do.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.