Vladimir Lenin

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.

The goal of Socialism is Communism.

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

Those who were seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music.

There’s so many ways you can hit one note.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you’re going to the bank to borrow money.

I feel like….Music is the – it’s the answer. It’s the reason.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.

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

Music is interior decoration.

I fell in love with Jazz when I was 12 listening to Duke Ellington and hearing a lot of Jazz in New York on the radio.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel.

The word “jazz” means to me no category, but when you get stuck into wanting to do something the way it was with the “jazz emblem” or logo chained around your neck, you play in a frozen moment in time and you keep fermenting the ‘fifties saying jazz should be this way or that. Well, if jazz to me means no category, then I’ve got the green light And if it sounds like.. sounds like.. sounds like, and keeps crossing over, it’s what I wanted to do in the first place. I like the way Stravinsky and those guys did things. They expressed something, if not themselves. In fact, some people talk about expression, but expression really doesn’t mean anything to me because there’s a lot of work which goes into building a drama and then it’s up to other people to offer “expression.” Expression is such a nebulous thing.

If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.