Wallace Roney

It’s always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don’t know where it comes from, it’s just there and I don’t question it.

When you’re creating your own shit, even the sky ain’t the limit.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.

Jazz amounts to Blues, your unique sound and the elusive genius of improvisation.

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

I started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that’s just the way it came out.

In this era it’s harder for musicians to get together, … Back in the ’80s, we were all at the clubs, you ran into people all the time. Now, everybody’s kind of in their own room with their computers. I use making an album as an opportunity to connect with musicians.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues,’ they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

Our music artistry should not be disconnected from our lives or ourselves.

Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists.

Music is to the soul what water is to the body.

Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.

Composing makes me feel like I’ve finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.

Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.