Paul Desmond

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

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

I would like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

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

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

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

Players are coming from other backgrounds: rock, folk, ethnic music. It’s changing Jazz for the better.

My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me. It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.

I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It’s time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It’s time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.

We’re here to have a ball.

Vocalists must study music and know everything an instrumentalist needs to know.

I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.

Jazz and love are the hardest things to describe from rationale.

Don’t give up trying to do what you really want. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it’s about feeling more than being perfect.

I have a sense of the importance of music and how powerful it is to bring people together.

Leo wanted me to be partners with him – for it to be the Fender guitar: the Les Paul Fender. When he approached me with the idea, he brought over a guitar and he gave it to me and I have it here. And I thought, if I’m gonna do this I’m going to go with the biggest company in the world: Gibson. Why should I fool around with some guy who is not a musician – I should go to the Gibson people.

I think I’ve tried to stay true to my music since the beginning. It’s kind of hard because of the access and technology but I just do what I do.

If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing.

I was a singing disc jockey who heard every type of music there was – and loved it all.

No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.