Barry Finnerty

The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn’t be able to do that.

I’ve sung a lot of emotional songs, but when you’re writing it’s very difficult to decide what to reveal.

I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

For me, there wasn’t a line between working and getting paid or simply playing for fun.

I’m always looking for ways to develop as a Jazz artist, to find different ways of using my voice.

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

I learn something new every day.

It’s not what you do, but the way you’re doing it and in the end that’s all that we have.

The weird thing about bass is the simplest stuff to do is the hardest.

One of the things I like about Jazz, kid, is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?

All I play is truth and emotion.

The beauty of Jazz is that it’s malleable. People address it to suit their own personalities.

Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.