Wes Montgomery

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going.

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

To me, the guitar cuts through. It carries more than the organ, but the organ has got more guts.

When I got pretty good I went on the road with a group. We starved.

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.

The audience, they’re not professionals. They just love music. It isn’t necessary to play over their heads to be admired.

If it wasn’t for hustlers, gangsters and gamblers there’d be no Jazz. Wasn’t middle-class who said Let’s go hear Bird tonight.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

When you are studying Jazz best thing to do is listen to records and live music as much you can and absorb everything.

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument. This is a comprehensive technique . . . a feeling for the keyboard that will allow you to transfer any emotional utterance into it. What has to happen is that you develop a comprehensive technique and then say, forget that. I’m just going to be expressive through the piano.

You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It’s time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It’s time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.

Let me whisper it. Let me sigh it. Let me sing it, my dear or I will cry it.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

Jazz music grabs you to the point where it never lets you go until the very last breath.

It’s up to the individual to keep up with the times.

Anyone who doesn’t give [his debut album, The College Dropout] a perfect score is lowering the integrity of the magazine