Gerry Mulligan

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

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

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it’s the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what’s available, what somebody happens to play for you.

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

I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.

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

There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

You can’t listen to what people who aren’t musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don’t want to hear, ‘Your kid is ugly.’ But I knew the record was good and it would sell.

I can’t sing it straight. I have no choice but to swing it.

To rise above the crowd, discipline yourself unceasingly to the strict demand and realities of your ambition.

Jazz music can relax, soothe and uplift the mind when you absorb it.

All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.

Albert King wasn’t my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues!

The Jazz Age became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders.

I wasn’t so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That’s why I’m broke.

There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead

Jazz speaks for life. This is triumphant music.

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.