Doc Severinsen

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass.

There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

I’ve sung a lot of emotional songs, but when you’re writing it’s very difficult to decide what to reveal.

Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

I used to play – when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues,’ they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

To this day, I don’t like people walking on stage not looking good. You have to look good. If you feel special about yourself then you’re going to play special.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.