Tadd Dameron

Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.

I don’t want to sing anything that doesn’t come real.

It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.

When you hear somebody with balls, that’s me.

Music must be an innovation.

A musician’s responsibility is to get as much of his art across to the public as possible.

Music is the great arbiter of the world, the key to central harmony and a necessary requirement of human emotion.

Jazz musicians are the only workers who will put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.

Count don’t do nothin’. But it sure sounds good.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

You have to sound sad first, then maybe later you can sound good.

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

Jazz musician is a combination entertainer, poet, singer, educator, student, artist, seducer and all-round good fellow.

An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.