Brian Blade

The expression of freedom that is Jazz improvisation mirrors the ethos of the best parts of society.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

You can’t rehearse a blues darlin’.

Music can’t save the world, but can make one a little calmer.

It’s either hip or it ain’t.

The main thing is you want to emote.

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.

Jazz stresses less on technical exhibitionism and much more on emotional content.

For most dates I was paid the sum of $1 per hr and they always tipped me at the end of the night.

If you follow your passions, you’ll never work a day in your life.

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

Music is the greatest communication in the world.

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

Dizzy used to tell me I’m playing too hard. He’d say to not give everything. Miles told me that too.

Music does not come to you. You have to come to it and you’ll walk away with something you didn’t have before.