D C DowDell

Hipness is what it is. But sometimes hipness is what it ain’t.

Jazz music has always made powerful statements about freedom, creativity and personal identity.

Jazz improvisation is an elusive genius.

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?

Practice as if you are the worst, play as if you are the best!

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

I’ll be writing songs till I die. There’s just no question.

I’ll keep evolving and put that into my songs.

Music does not come to you. You have to come to it and you’ll walk away with something you didn’t have before.

And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.

An orchestra can become as familiar and reliable an instrument as a well-known, well-worn piano.

I’m still searching even today for a sound, like the guy that’s searching for a home. I haven’t been able to find that completely. I’m satisfied at times with the sound of my guitar… but it is a little sound that I hear but I can’t tell anybody about it. I don’t know how. But if I ever get it, I’ll know.

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society to express yourself freely and creatively.

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

I wrote “Pilot of My Destiny” because of my love of flying. The fact that my brother is a pilot inspired me to write it. I call him pilot. He calls me copilot.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

I am the sum total of everything that I have experienced musically.

Practice 15 or 20 years and then it comes out spontaneously.

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.

It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just that when you’re playing, Stephane, you’ve got both Chaput and me backing you, but when I’m soloing I’ve only got one guitar behind me!

You only get better by playing.