Cannonball Adderley

Hipness is not a state of mind, it’s a fact of life.

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

I’d solo on my guitar; then sing; then solo; then sing some more. one stopped when the other started. That way I felt a continuity, not a conflict, like a wheel that keeps turning. Both sounds – guitar and voice – were coming out of me, but they issued from different parts of my soul.

Let your life be your music and let your music be your life.

You have a mentor or teacher and you learn all he can show you.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you’re going to the bank to borrow money.

Listening is more important than anything because that’s what music is. Somebody is playing something and you’re receiving it.

Miles Davis and John Coltrane were so cool, if alive today global warming wouldn’t be an issue.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

It was a great thrill to listen every night and hear him on NBC radio. Les played just as great then. And then later on, in the 1950s, Les Paul turned the whole world on to guitar. He’s just a terrific, flashy, tasty guitarist.

For me, I started on a Les Paul and went through years of playing other guitars and just came back full circle to what was more natural to me.

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

You want the listener to find the song on their own, give too much away and it takes away from the imagination.