D C DowDell

My neighbors always listen to very hip Jazz… whether they like it or not.

The more you listen, the more your hear.

Jazz has evolved with an inner necessity characteristic of any true art form.

Jazz goes into my coffee in the morning, in my wine at night.

Music is what feelings sound like.

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

It’s the same for listeners. If you can’t stand your girlfriend, can’t take it anymore, put on your headphones and escape into another world.

I look for a deep, gutty feelin’ in a guitar tone. I don’t use picks. People ask, “How you get that?” It’s just there. There’s a lot of people try to play real fast chords-da da da da da-that ain’t the hard, solid blues. It’s synthetic. It has not feeling to it. You sit down and play some funky, funky guitar. Take your time! Don’t rush it. Just let it come flowing through you. I can play guitar so funky, it’ll bring teardrops to your eyes.

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

Musicianship is using your two ears.

It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.

I didn’t get my music together until I was 40.

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.

I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.

I would say that a composer writes music to express and communicate and put down in permanent form certain thoughts, emotions and states of being. The resultant work of art should speak to the men and women of the artist’s own time with a directness and immediacy of communicative power that no previous art expression can give.

You don’t want to play like B. B. King. You want to be you. So what you do is listen to players you like, and try to “borrow” a little bit from each guy. You don’t try to sound exactly like the other guy, you just add the bits to your vocabulary. It’s like learning to read or write.

Applause felt like approval and it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily.

The essentials of Jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing and instrumental personality.

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness – I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

I don’t care for the music when they’re talking bad about women because I think women are God’s greatest gift to the planet – I just like music.

Jazz is not a what, it is a how.