Gerry Mulligan

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

I’ve always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

I’m fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

Jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

Music chooses her musicians.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

Hot can be cool and cool can be hot and each can be both. But hot or cool man, Jazz is Jazz.

‘Swing’ is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a ‘swing band’ in music.

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.

It’s like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something.

I try to teach by example and not force ideas on a young musician. We’re here to be part of a process of exchange.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don’t have to worry about anything.

I’m my own most merciless critic onstage.

You have to pack as much as you can in an hour or 70 minutes. This time around it was 15 songs, so it was a challenge to get them all the right length so you could get them all on.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

For me, music and life are all about style

I always liked the steel guitar. I also love the guys that play the bottleneck. But I could never do it; I never made it do what I want. So every time I would pick up the guitar, I ‘d shake my hand and trill it a bit. For some strange reason my ears would say to me that sounds similar to what those guys were doing. I can’t pick up the guitar now without doing it. So that’s how I got into making my sound. It was nothing pretty. Just trying to please myself. I heard that sound.

Art is a subject that is inundated with opinions. In fact, that’s all it is about is opinions.

I like jazz, rock n’ roll, some hip hop – I can’t think of any music I don’t like.