Gary Burton

Always keep reaching.

Inspiration comes from tunes you play, other musicians and your own imagination.

It’s up to the individual to keep up with the times.

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.

Whenever I fill out the job description I put ‘songwriter’, never ‘singer’ or ‘artist.’ Singers come and go.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

I have a lot of albums yet to do.

Have you ever wondered why young people take to music like fish to water? Maybe it’s because music is fun, plain and simple.

If you want to play somebody’s music, you’d better go into his house.

Once you become predictable, no one’s interested anymore.

I feel I have only scratched the surface of what I know I am capable of doing.

Get out there and improvise and take chances and don’t be a perfectionist.

Writing is allowing the musical idea to speak for itself.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

Silence is what makes music sexy. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

The first time I ever had to go overseas for music was to play the Royal Festival Hall in London, singing in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and that week was insane: Thursday I rehearse with the orchestra; Friday I sing two songs in front of 2,500 people, which I have never done before; and the next day I go to Abbey Road to record with Herbie Hancock; and then I am playing a pub in south London somewhere, and nobody cares because London have lost some sporting match; and then I go home and I’m standing in front of my washing machine, putting my unmentionables into the dryer, and in that instant, I just looked at myself and said ‘This life is going to be strange’.