Gerry Mulligan

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.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

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

In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.

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

I’m fortunate that I’m making a living at it now because I’m not equipped to do anything else.

[On the word Jazz] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s only a word. What’s in a name? Nothing! Cats say, Call me Muhammed so-and-so. But what’s the difference? A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music. Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

I remember going to sleep many nights with a Gibson catalog, dreaming about getting a Les Paul. I finally did, with a loan from my Dad. It’s a really heavy instrument. But it plays like butter. I met Les backstage at a show once. Jeff Beck made me play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ for Les, which was a little embarrassing. He changed history, big-time.

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.

Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.

He almost adds a Chet-like sound to it.

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

There’s two things you can’t live without. Water and music.

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going.

My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise . . . a part of yourself you never knew existed.

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

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

Good music is good music and everything else can go to hell.