Cab Calloway

You hear about the Duke Ellingtons, the Jimmie Luncefords, and the Fletcher Hendersons, but people sometimes forget that jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

Jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.

At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres.

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

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.

New artists can own their content and completely build their base and their following without having to sell or be owned by anybody and it creates such a diversity.

I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it’s about feeling more than being perfect.

My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.

To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel not the way others think you should feel.

Our music artistry should not be disconnected from our lives or ourselves.

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

I don’t really look at my career in terms of highlights and low lights. I think I’m at this place right now and to be at this place right now I’ve had to go through many obstacles and lots of highs and lows and for me it’s about the entire journey.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.

I loved Billie Holiday more than any other person other than myself on the stage.

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.

They said Bird played bebop, but Bird could still swing. I’ve heard a lot of guys play bebop, but they wasn’t swinging.

You can practice to learn technique, but I’m more interested in conceiving something in the moment.

Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.