Gerry Mulligan

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

It’s true I’ve always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

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

Life on the road is murder. It’s as though life begins and ends with your horn in your mouth.

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

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say ‘Here I am,’ and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you’re confident, they’re confident. As long as you adjust to them you’re not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn’t pay to come out and look at the tapestries.

If you can’t play the blues, you might as well hang it up.

I think that those elements – light and sound – are beyond democratic. They’re into the creative part of life.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands …If they act too hip, you know they can’t play shit.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

End phrases where you feel they should end. Don’t look for resolutions you don’t feel because the books call for them.

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

I felt like I was making a record under the radar, and that is my favorite way to do anything.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other’s ideas.

You can’t seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues – you can’t seperate it. Because that’s where it all started, and that’s where it all come from – that’s where I learned to keep rhythm – in church.

When Bird came on the scene, it was shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark and then there was light.

Vocalists must study music and know everything an instrumentalist needs to know.