Cassandra Wilson

I was never interested in singing in the church or school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.

I’m always looking for ways to develop as a Jazz artist, to find different ways of using my voice.

The louder they [the band] play the softer I sing.

I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn’t making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don’t understand the part of money in running a band.

I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother’s aunt who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and a few others.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

I’ve tried all my life to avoid copying. If I can’t be myself, there’s no point being in Jazz.

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.

Breathe…. breathe a lot!

Check out the albums, … Check out the live performances. That’s the reality of it all. Music is such an energizing thing.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

T-Bone was, to me, that sound of being in heaven.

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That’s why I wanted the clarinet.

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it’s the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what’s available, what somebody happens to play for you.