Sammy Nestico

Musicianship is using your two ears.

It’s important to find your own voice and do something of your own.

Just ’cause I’ve forgotten more than I can play, doesn’t mean it’s not Improv.

Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

Let my children have music.

When you make a sound, it carries on to infinity. Sound is a vibration. Vibration is energy. All of that survives in space long after we’re dead. When I walk on stage at the Wiener Staatsoper, I can feel the footsteps of Chopin and Rachmaninov.

If you can’t play the Blues you might as well hang it up.

I’m surprised Beyonce liked me. I met Beyonce!!

Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.

There’s a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.

There’s only one thing that everyone in this world has in common: whether you want to love somebody and you want to be loved in return.

If the audience doesn’t hear what is going on, is it going on?

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton’s and couldn’t play, you might get your ass kicked.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.