Wayne Shorter

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.

Clouds float in the same pattern only once.

Music should not have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that is required to sound like jazz.

A series of vibrations. What does it matter, the source of the catalyst?

Music is interior decoration.

You know the actor John Garfield? In one movie he walked up to this train station, the ticket booth, and the guy says, ‘Yes, where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I want a ticket to nowhere.’ I thought: that’s it. The freedom to do that. I want a ticket to nowhere.

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

If you follow your passions, you’ll never work a day in your life.

I hate to think of Jazz as black and white, something political.

When you sing, always tell the truth.

I have younger friends who don’t work and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

New artists can own their content and completely build their base and their following without having to sell or be owned by anybody and it creates such a diversity.

In my family on my mother’s side we’re all church musicians first so I don’t remember a time when we weren’t doing something musical. My brothers and I sang in a little quartet, my aunts and uncles sang and my grandfather was a minister of music in our church, so walking and talking was like doing music for us.

Every symphony, for example, is a sonata for orchestra; every string quartet is a sonata for four strings; every concerto a sonata for a solo instrument and orchestra.

While many attempts have been made to define Jazz, what’s the point really. Jazz is to be experienced – period.

Let my children have music.

Inspiration comes from tunes you play, other musicians and your own imagination.

The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.

I am attracted to Jazz music for the idea of being in the moment and communicating to people spontaneously.

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

The reward for playing Jazz is playing Jazz.