Steve Turre

The Blues is never old.

I kinda went back to that period between ’88 and ’94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.

Music’s been around a long time, and there’s going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it’s a big record, that’s the frosting on the cake, but music’s the main meal.

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.

Let your life be your music and let your music be your life.

You can’t explain Jazz to anyone without losing the experience because it’s feeling, not words.

Musicianship is using your two ears.

[Ben Taylor] He is an interesting combination of the two of us. His voice box is more like mine but the way his tongue sits in his mouth, and the way he pronounces words, is just like James Taylor.

If you have something in your life worth celebrating, you can put it in a blues song.

I wasn’t interested in practicing Bach; I was too busy digging Horace Silver!

I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

People don’t want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately and this is one of the biggest problems.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

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.

I listen to all kinds of songs. There’s something to be learned from every type of music and from the one making it, whether it’s pop or jazz or hip-hop.