Benny Goodman

As soon as it was understood that we could handle things in our own way, it was the thrill of my life to walk out on that stage with people just hemming the band in.

One way or the other, if you want to find reasons why you shouldn’t keep on, you’ll find ’em. The obstacles are all there; there are a million of ’em.

You have to look good.

Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it’s in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance.

After you’ve done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.

I remember Glenn Miller coming to me once, before he had his own band, saying, How do you do it? How do you get started? It’s so difficult. I told him, I don’t know but whatever you do don’t stop. Just keep on going.

It’s performing without any really set basis for the lines and the content as such emotionally or, specifically, musically. And if you sit down and contemplate what you’re going to do, and take five hours to write five minutes of music, then it’s composed music. Therefore I would put it in the classical or serious, whatever you want to call it, written-music category. So there’s composed music and there’s jazz. And to me anybody that makes music using the process that we are using in Jazz, is playing Jazz.

What have I got? No looks, no money, no education… just talent.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

Just because I’m playing jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

I’ve always liked the Freddie King/B. B. King rich tone, and at the same time, I like the manic Buddy Guy/Otis Rush Strat tone. So I’m always caught in the middle of the Gibson and Fender sounds. If I’m playing my black [Fender] Strat, and I’m in the middle of a blues, I kind of wish I was playing a [Gibson] Les Paul. Then again, if I was playing a Les Paul, the sound would be great, but I’d be saying, “Man, I wish I had the Stratocaster neck!”

I feel like….Music is the – it’s the answer. It’s the reason.

It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

Blow your life through your horn.

Composing is a mindset, a part of who I am.

Jazz musicians have some outlaw in them somewhere.

What’s tied Jazz together is its foundation in the Blues, a reliance on group interplay and the unique phenomenon of spontaneous improvisation.

Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I’m happy with that.

Jazz has the ability to absorb and transform influences from diverse musical styles.

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