John Coltrane

You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.

The emotional reaction is all that matters.

Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels and that’s too bad.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

Through Dizzy and Bird I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.

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

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

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.

The spirit of Jazz is the spirit of openness.

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

You’ve got to be willing to put stuff on the line, otherwise it doesn’t have much meaning.

Living is easy with eyes closed.

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.

Music is what feelings sound like.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

A musician’s responsibility is to get as much of his art across to the public as possible.

Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.

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.