Jazz music is the real deal.
Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.
Jazz music is our original American culture.
Jazz is not to be sliced into bites by mass marketing geniuses who assume we are mindless cattle.
Jazz standards are our contribution to music history.
There’s a spiritual satisfaction that one gets from listening and playing good Jazz.
The expression of freedom that is Jazz improvisation mirrors the ethos of the best parts of society.
One shouldn’t be in the habit of quoting oneself.
When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don’t even notice.
You can’t rehearse a blues darlin’.
You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room – proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don’t like that. I listen to everything.
I remember going to sleep many nights with a Gibson catalog, dreaming about getting a Les Paul. I finally did, with a loan from my Dad. It’s a really heavy instrument. But it plays like butter. I met Les backstage at a show once. Jeff Beck made me play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ for Les, which was a little embarrassing. He changed history, big-time.
I loved Billie Holiday more than any other person other than myself on the stage.
I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.
Jazz is a music that allows a person to express his deepest, most personal self.
You must surrender whatever preconceptions you have about music if you’re really interested in it.
I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.
The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.
As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.
