Ornette Coleman

Talk of God is most often in church. Is there a God outside of church? I hope so. But how should I know? How does anybody know?

After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that’s how I ended up just being a saxophone player.

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.

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

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

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

A wise man practices slowly; but a wiser man practices even slower.

It could be my British need for discipline that makes me admire the American appetite for freedom and passion.

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy… all the things that humans have.

One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport.

Just ’cause I’ve forgotten more than I can play, doesn’t mean it’s not Improv.

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

There’s a lot of recreational Jazz going on, where cats learn a particular style and become sharks on somebody else’s language.

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

From hard rhythms of Be-bop, the mellow harmonies of Cool, to atonal forays of Free and the Straight Ahead delivery of Modern, it’s all Jazz.

I’d take my guitar and play on the streets. A gospel song would get me a pat on the head. But a blues would get me a dime. So you see why I stuck with the blues.

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel… and that’s what I’ve been doing all my life.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.