Oscar Peterson

I don’t do something because I think it’ll sell 30 million albums. I couldn’t care less if it sells just one.

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.

I don’t do something because I think it will sell 30 million albums. I couldn’t care less. If it sells one, it sells one.

The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn’t be able to do that.

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.

I don’t believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.

I just remember always trying to emulate Dinah Washington, hanging out in my bedroom closet.

After two takes you’re imitating yourself.

I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound.

The first time I ever had to go overseas for music was to play the Royal Festival Hall in London, singing in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and that week was insane: Thursday I rehearse with the orchestra; Friday I sing two songs in front of 2,500 people, which I have never done before; and the next day I go to Abbey Road to record with Herbie Hancock; and then I am playing a pub in south London somewhere, and nobody cares because London have lost some sporting match; and then I go home and I’m standing in front of my washing machine, putting my unmentionables into the dryer, and in that instant, I just looked at myself and said ‘This life is going to be strange’.

You’re just a little too hip for the room. It’s not good to be too hip because two hips make an ass.

I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

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

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.

Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.

New artists can own their content and completely build their base and their following without having to sell or be owned by anybody and it creates such a diversity.

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.

Instrumental music can spread the international language.

Just to keep it interesting I’ll tune the guitar randomly, so I don’t know what’s going to come out.

I like the music. I love it and live it in fact, but for me the business part just plain stinks.

Jazz improvisation is an elusive genius.