Booker Little

Applause felt like approval and it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily.

Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.

You just sort of have to play the way you are.

It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.

There’s two things you can’t live without. Water and music.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

The word “jazz” means to me no category, but when you get stuck into wanting to do something the way it was with the “jazz emblem” or logo chained around your neck, you play in a frozen moment in time and you keep fermenting the ‘fifties saying jazz should be this way or that. Well, if jazz to me means no category, then I’ve got the green light And if it sounds like.. sounds like.. sounds like, and keeps crossing over, it’s what I wanted to do in the first place. I like the way Stravinsky and those guys did things. They expressed something, if not themselves. In fact, some people talk about expression, but expression really doesn’t mean anything to me because there’s a lot of work which goes into building a drama and then it’s up to other people to offer “expression.” Expression is such a nebulous thing.

I hope my recordings of my own works won’t inhibit other people’s performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn’t always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.

How are you going to know what’s new to play if you haven’t listened to everything that’s old?

However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.

Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

I felt a responsibility to present a viable alternative to the popular electric sound.

The popular song is America’s greatest ambassador.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.