Glenn Miller

I haven’t a great Jazz band and I don’t want one.

A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.

I want a kick to my band, but I don’t want the rhythm to hog the spotlight.

I thought I had swell ideas and wonderful musicians but no one else did.

By giving the public a rich and full melody, distinctly arranged and well played, all the time creating new tone colors and patterns, I feel we have a better chance of being successful. I want a kick to my band, but I don’t want the rhythm to hog the spotlight.

It’s been a big week for our side. Over on the beaches of Normandy our boys have fired the opening guns of the long awaited drive to liberate the world.

Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

If the audience doesn’t hear what is going on, is it going on?

My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.

Music is what feelings sound like.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all

If you can’t get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.

Let my children have music.

I used my mother’s radio as a PA system. I’d take the telephone, the speaking part, and take those two leads off and lead them into the radio and the sound would come out of the speaker.

I’ve tried all my life to avoid copying. If I can’t be myself, there’s no point being in Jazz.

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.

Improvisation is the most widespread of all musical activities. Why did so many people spend so long pretending it never happened?

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.

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

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