My music is Jazz.
External instruments are only extensions of the biological instrument.
Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.
I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.
Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
Look for the one who’s not smiling and play to that person. Once you’ve got that person, you’ve got the whole club.
Swing is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a swing band in music.
I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it.
How do I know why Miles walks off the stage? Why don’t you ask him? And besides, maybe we’d all like to be like Miles, and just haven’t got the guts.
If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.
Despite the fact I’m a professional performer, it’s true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.
I cringed when I heard myself described as a Jazz singer. I’ve always thought of myself as a Jazz vocalist.
A good bassist determines the direction of any band.
I had an affinity for music and could play anything I heard on the piano, but I wasn’t scholastically advanced in any way. It was more of a habitual tendency. I would work on weekends at piano bars playing jazz when I was an art student, but the music wasn’t mine – it was covers: everything from Radiohead to really old jazz. But other than that, the only training I had was piano lessons from when I was nine until I was eleven.
To keep creating you have to be about change.
