Stan Getz

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

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it’s like the human voice

I learn something new every day.

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.

Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

I think that those elements – light and sound – are beyond democratic. They’re into the creative part of life.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.

It’s not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.

I always try to teach by example and not force my ideas on a young musician. One of the reasons we’re here is to be a part of this process of exchange.

If I’m not a jazz player all the time, I’ve at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.

I like to know for whom I’m writing – it makes the composition easier to do.

I’m always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

When you listen to someone improvise, the notes that are played are only half the story.

Jazz has evolved with an inner necessity characteristic of any true art form.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other’s ideas.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.