Shirley Horn

They’re singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

I let my body play what’s in my heart. I play life instead of notes. I play what I lived.

Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I’m trying to do more. When I’m singing, I don’t want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.

Music’s a good thing, it calm the beast in the man.

If I could sell 500 million records every time, it would be great. But I’ve also had the luxury experience of having it when I was a teenager, in a very kind of model version of it.

There’s nobody plays like me and I don’t play like anybody else.

Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.

Your humanity is your instrument.

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.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.

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

It was in tune when I bought it.

People complain about the music industry, but this is a great time to be a musician.