D C DowDell

If the bass plays the root, a pianist superimposes a Maj7 built on the 5th and the sax plays the 13th, will hot women notice?

One shouldn’t be in the habit of quoting oneself.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

The true musician plays what he/she hears. That cannot be a mistake.

While many forms of music may use the dynamic of improvisation, Jazz exemplifies the unique characteristic of collective improvisation.

A Jazz Diet will make you hipper, thinner, taller, smarter, richer, happier and more attractive to members of both sexes.

I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.

The great jazz instrumentalists taught me how to sing and interpret a song. they showed me how a horn can have as much personality as an actor.

Anybody can write music of a sort. But touching the public heart is quite another thing.

Jazz music can relax, soothe and uplift the mind when you absorb it.

I think that it is important to try to sound like someone, especially early in your development.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

I just remember always trying to emulate Dinah Washington, hanging out in my bedroom closet.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

I expect the audience to come up to my level.

The thing I always default to is that I’ll always be here to write songs.

Music is the most interesting thing in the world.

I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.

I used to play a place in Twist, Arkansas… It used to get quite cold in Twist. And they used to take something that looked like a big garbage pail and set it in the middle of the floor, half-fill it with kerosene. They’d light that fuel and that’s what we’d use for heat… But this particular night, two guys started to fighting and one of them knocked the other one over onto this container. When they did it spilled on the floor. Now, it was already burning so when it spilled it looked like a river of fire. Everybody ran for the front door including yours truly. But when I got on the outside then I realized that I’d left the guitar inside. I went back for it. The building was a wooden building and it was burning so fast that when I got my guitar it started to collapse around me. So I almost lost my life trying to save the guitar. But the next morning we found that these two guys who were fighting were fighting about a lady. I never did meet the lady but I learned that her name was Lucille. So I named my guitar Lucille to remind me not to do a thing like that again.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.