Paul Desmond

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

The qualities in music I consider most important are beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination and sincerity.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.

I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player and a special award in 1961 for quietness.

I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.

It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.

Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

Everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

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

Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I’m trying to do more. When I’m singing, I don’t want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.

Hot can be cool and cool can be hot and each can be both. But hot or cool man, Jazz is Jazz.

You gotta mean it and you gotta treat it gentle.

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

Damn it, when I’m bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it.

My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often -in fact, mostly -at the expense of everything else in my life.

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

We didn’t have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free

She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.

There are notes between notes, you know.

I started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.