Sonny Rollins

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music.

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress…so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

I’ve always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn’t have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.

I try to teach by example and not force ideas on a young musician. We’re here to be part of a process of exchange.

I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That’s the point now isn’t it?

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

I gave it my absolute everything I had in that howl at the start of the song. And then B. B. King opened up his mouth and I felt like a girl. We had learned and absorbed, but the more we tried to be like B.B., the less convincing we were.

Art should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.

Improvisation is the most widespread of all musical activities. Why did so many people spend so long pretending it never happened?

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

I wasn’t so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That’s why I’m broke.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

Miles Davis was a part of my life from 1947 on. I was born in 1941 and I first heard him in 1947 on a 78 rpm. And then I followed his career, starting with his first solo album in 1951. He was an icon and inspiration and a mentor to me.

Musicianship is using your two ears.

You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.