Bobby Shew

It’s important to find your own voice and do something of your own.

[on Prince] I learned about music that didn’t have any barriers or any kind of, like, containment. I learned about wild, crazy topics and ways to express yourself that had never been written in quite that way before. I learned that a human being could be able to defy all stereotypes, and be the epitome of badassness.

You only get better by playing.

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

The melody is generally what the piece is all about.

Look for the one who’s not smiling and play to that person. Once you’ve got that person, you’ve got the whole club.

I can’t understand these guys who just have to have your autograph. I asked one of them ‘What do you do when you get home, take it out and look at it?’

My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me. It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.

Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.

Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

Do it again on the next verse and people think you meant it.

We quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

This be an empty world without the blues.