Sonny Rollins

My improvisations are a beguiling mixture of the vertical and the horizontal.

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

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don’t think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact. …. Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there.

I’m fortunate that I’m making a living at it now because I’m not equipped to do anything else.

I’m now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

You’ve got to learn your instrument.

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.

I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don’t like that. I listen to everything.

Music and life are all about style.

I’m not playing for other musicians. We’re trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We’ll keep him happy.

I don’t like to hear someone put down Dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.

In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.

The jazziest American contribution to the vocabulary of English is Jazz itself.

Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they’re trying to say with jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play. If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

Surrender your whole being to a note and gravity disappears.

An orchestra can become as familiar and reliable an instrument as a well-known, well-worn piano.

The challenge to the improvisor is to get permanence into his spontaneity. The challenge to the composer is to get spontaneity into his permanence.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

The idea is more important than the style you’re playing in.

The true value of this music lies in an artist’s individual creativity and that unique process of expression which is Jazz.