Bill Evans

You can’t explain Jazz to anyone without losing the experience because it’s feeling, not words.

Jazz is a mental attitude rather than a style. It uses a certain process of the mind expressed spontaneously through some musical instrument. I’m concerned with retaining that process.

Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.

Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument. This is a comprehensive technique . . . a feeling for the keyboard that will allow you to transfer any emotional utterance into it. What has to happen is that you develop a comprehensive technique and then say, forget that. I’m just going to be expressive through the piano.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable.

I wasn’t so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That’s why I’m broke.

I just remember always trying to emulate Dinah Washington, hanging out in my bedroom closet.

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

We don’t talk music. We just play.

I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.

When you’re creating your own shit, even the sky ain’t the limit.

Indian music is very soulful and the only other school that develops improv to the high degree you find in Jazz.

You can be beyond yourself, better than your technique, better than most of your usual ideas.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.

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.

Good music is good music and everything else can go to hell.