D C DowDell

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time!

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.

Jazz – it takes passion to make it happen!

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

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

It’s important to reflect on what made Jazz so special.

Learn the tunes by playing the masters, learn expression by playing yourself.

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

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write to ultimately be at peace with himself.

When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent’s disapproval.

Stevie didn’t use the technology to drive the song. He used it to enhance. I use the tools to further my work, I don’t use my work to further the tools.

One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport.

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

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

One way or the other, if you want to find reasons why you shouldn’t keep on, you’ll find ’em. The obstacles are all there; there are a million of ’em.

We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don’t know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.

I say, ‘Play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years’.