Yusef Lateef

My music is Jazz.

We recorded to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say ‘Here I am,’ and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you’re confident, they’re confident. As long as you adjust to them you’re not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn’t pay to come out and look at the tapestries.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel… and that’s what I’ve been doing all my life.

I could see the blues was about survival.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

My version of Georgia became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition. If you don’t understand what it’s about, you’re depriving yourself of being really able to communicate this poem.

I’m always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.

There is nothing more stuntastic than rapping in front of an orchestra.

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.

I don’t pop my cork for every man I see.