Ornette Coleman

I wasn’t so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That’s why I’m broke.

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.

Difference between sex and love? Well, you’re not always sure you’re in love. But when you’re having sex, there’s really no mistaking it.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

I think that those elements – light and sound – are beyond democratic. They’re into the creative part of life.

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

My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.

Especially, I want my work-and the trios if possible-to sing.

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

The blues fitted in with the early 60s, the social way of life at the time.

I’m fortunate that I’m making a living at it now because I’m not equipped to do anything else.

I am a writer – that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.

We’re not like pop musicians who have to perform the same top ten tunes every night of a tour.

A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.

I always try to teach by example and not force my ideas on a young musician. One of the reasons we’re here is to be a part of this process of exchange.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

Play what you know and then play above that.

Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won’t do much because of my age.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.

I hope my recordings of my own works won’t inhibit other people’s performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn’t always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.