Tierney Sutton

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

I just fell in love with the integrity of the music and that was it.

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

What are you going to do when you love music? You can’t stop.

I came from an era when we didn’t use electronic instruments. The bass wasn’t even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

Some players get very philosophical and cerebral about Jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play.

Jazz is an art form that depends on its antecedents. There must be respect for the people that have gone before.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

I think when my brother (Claude who founded vocal sextet Take Six) got his deal and I saw him on the Grammys that was when I said, ‘oh, you know what? If he can do it then maybe I can do too’ and that’s when I really focused on trying to make it in this business.

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat.

It’s always Jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of clothes she’s the same old broad.

Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.

Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

One way or the other, if you want to find reasons why you shouldn’t keep on, you’ll find ’em. The obstacles are all there; there are a million of ’em.

What I learned the most from Prince was putting art first, being creatively ambitious, and putting creativity at the forefront of what I do.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.