Sammy Davis, Jr.

Ten million dollars after I’d become a star I was deeply in debt.

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.

There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.

I love it when people hear my music but can’t figure out what instrument I’m playing.

There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven’t yet done.

I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn’t making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don’t understand the part of money in running a band.

We might as well swing boys, because Stravinsky cuts us all.

Jazz music is collective creativity.

Let the music speak for itself.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

I didn’t know the right names for anything at first, but I knew what knocked me out. Changes… man I dug.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

We usually never got out of there before four or five o’clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

Look for the one who’s not smiling and play to that person. Once you’ve got that person, you’ve got the whole club.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

Musicians need enough experience to develop a vocabulary.