Jazz? has no boundaries.
Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.
Life is not about finding our limitations, it’s about finding our infinity.
Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.
When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn’t I couldn’t do my best.
A great teacher stimulates his student’s creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.
You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.
We may not be changing the world dramatically, but we’re improving it one note at a time.
Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn’t about standing still and being safe.
[In 1969] I think lyrics have always been important to any serious writer of music.
Music is interior decoration.
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!
I am a writer – that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.
During these years I began to feel an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum.
I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It’s time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It’s time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.
I’m fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.
I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.
Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing very powerful emotions. That’s what draws people towards it.
If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.
