Oscar Peterson

Some players get very philosophical and cerebral about Jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play.

Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing. I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea. I have no one style. I play as I feel.

If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

I have no one style.

Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they’re trying to say with jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play. If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

Of the whole bunch of guys who play hollow body guitar, I think Herb Ellis has the most drive.

I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.

Jazz improvisation is an elusive genius.

The blues comes right back to a person’s feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don’t know nothing about the blues, please believe me.

Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

[on Ornette Coleman] Man, that cat is nuts!

It’s not what you do, but the way you’re doing it and in the end that’s all that we have.

To play piano is a significant part of my life, my existence. It fulfills a very physical and spiritual need for me.

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

It’s not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.

Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.

[In 1969] I think lyrics have always been important to any serious writer of music.