Music is a verb.
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.
I’ve had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I’ve had lots of guys call me up. I’ve gotten two or three commissions to write things. I’ve written lots of movie scores.
I didn’t need to worry about keys, chords, melody if I had that emotion that brought tears and laughter to people’s hearts.
Musicians tell me, if what Im doing is right, they should never have gone to school.
How can I turn emotion into knowledge? That’s what I try to do with my horn.
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time.
The high note is not the only thing.
Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.
The inspired moment may sometimes be described as a kind of hallucinatory state of mind: one half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates. The half that listens has better look the other way, had better simulate a half attention only, for the half that dictates is easily disgruntled and avenges itself for too close inspection by fading entirely away.
Do not fear mistakes, there are none.
It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.
Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.
Music is the greatest communication in the world.
There is nothing more stuntastic than rapping in front of an orchestra.
So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.
People don’t want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately and this is one of the biggest problems.
The more vulnerable and the more confused the song is, the equal and opposite effect is how I feel after having written it.
If you want to be a musician, study your craft. Study music.
I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.
Jazz music can relax, soothe and uplift the mind when you absorb it.
Stevie didn’t use the technology to drive the song. He used it to enhance. I use the tools to further my work, I don’t use my work to further the tools.
