Tierney Sutton

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

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

Jazz improvisation is an elusive genius.

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

The louder they [the band] play the softer I sing.

[On the word Jazz] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s only a word. What’s in a name? Nothing! Cats say, Call me Muhammed so-and-so. But what’s the difference? A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music. Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

External instruments are only extensions of the biological instrument.

You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be playing.

There are four qualities essential to a great Jazzman: taste, courage, individuality and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.

I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.

I have always seen Jazz as innovative.

I think that it is important to try to sound like someone, especially early in your development.

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

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.

Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness—I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

Something just grabs you about a song.