Sammy Cahn

I think when my brother (Claude who founded vocal sextet Take Six) got his deal and I saw him on the Grammys that was when I said, ‘oh, you know what? If he can do it then maybe I can do too’ and that’s when I really focused on trying to make it in this business.

A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

It’s all music.

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

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

Jazz – it takes passion to make it happen!

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.

I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.

I started to like blues, I guess, when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There was something about it, because nobody else played that kind of music.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

Just allow your feelings to go with the music and you’ll find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.

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

Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.