Bob Dorough

Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.

You don’t have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.

To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.

If you dig it, do it. If you dig it a lot, do it again.

They’re not particular whether you’re playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can’t define it beyond that.

To imitate someone is to insult them.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

Jazz is so incestuous that it’s starting to kill itself.

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

When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn’t go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.

You never get it figured out. You just keep playing.

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn’t I couldn’t do my best.

For a long time I wasn’t listening to music, to the rock and roll stuff on the radio, because it would cause me to get sweaty–it would bring back memories I didn’t want to know about, or I would get that feeling that I’m not alive ’cause I’m not making it. And if it was good, I hated it ’cause I wasn’t doing it. And if it was bad, I was furious ’cause I could’ve done it better…

I’m creating music – it doesn’t matter if anyone else likes it.