Sonny Rollins

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

I’m now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don’t think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact. …. Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress…so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

I wanted to sustain a note like a singer. I wanted to phrase a note like a saxist. By bending the strings, by trilling my hand – and I have big fat hands – I could achieve something that approximated a vocal vibrato. I could sustain a note. I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions. By fooling with the feedback between my amplifier and instrument, I started experimenting with sounds that expressed my feelings, whether happy or sad, bouncy or bluesy. I was looking for ways to let my guitar sing.

Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.

I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.

Music used to be essential and meaningful, but now it’s disposable.

I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: ‘Always on My Mind,’ the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.

There’s a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There’s also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

Get out there and improvise and take chances and don’t be a perfectionist.

My neighbors always listen to very hip Jazz… whether they like it or not.

[on Glastonbury] I started off the show and I completely messed up the music. And me, as you can imagine by this phone call, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. So it really put me into a slightly depressed state.

Jazz is one of the least learnable art forms.

Jazz is a sideways glance at music. It’s like being an architect, knowing the basis of design but understanding that the façade can be whatever you dream. I’m a free person. I don’t want to be tied down.

I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

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

Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.