Bob Dorough

[on Django Reinhardt] By far the most astonishing guitar player ever … Django was quite superhuman, there’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player

I’ll keep evolving and put that into my songs.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. The blues didn’t have to explain the mystery of pain that I felt; it was there in the songs and voices of singers like Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, in the cries of their guitars.

If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

I kinda went back to that period between ’88 and ’94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

Jazz improvisation is an elusive genius.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

In my family on my mother’s side we’re all church musicians first so I don’t remember a time when we weren’t doing something musical. My brothers and I sang in a little quartet, my aunts and uncles sang and my grandfather was a minister of music in our church, so walking and talking was like doing music for us.

I started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.

The arranger doesn’t get any royalties, but I had so much fun doing it.

The time is now.

Dog spelled backward is God. That’s pretty heavy.

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