Sonny Rollins

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be Jazz.

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.

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

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. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.

My music is Jazz.

I have no one style.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

From hard rhythms of Be-bop, the mellow harmonies of Cool, to atonal forays of Free and the Straight Ahead delivery of Modern, it’s all Jazz.

If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.

I want the music to connect to people; reach people every time I perform.

A Jazz performance centers upon the process of creation. The final objective is not only the finished product, but the path and process taken towards it.

If you’re gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.

Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’ So hush little baby don’t you cry.

Silence is what makes music sexy. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought.

Women bring something different to an instrument if they are respectful of their feminine aesthetic.

You can’t sing about love unless you know about it.

Ah music… a magic beyond all we do here!