Jaco Pastorius

I’m not a star. I’m just backing up the cats.

Good Jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms and yells. Fine Jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great Jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of Jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra runaround the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.

I’m not playing for other musicians. We’re trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We’ll keep him happy.

I find my inspiration in myself.

If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there’s something wrong with my act.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

I never thought about being famous or rich. I just thought, Oh, I’ll get a nice little girl and go and play every night, and I’d be happy. And that worked for a while. But the little girl’s mother didn’t trust a guy with a horn.

Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.

Play it f**kin’ loud!

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.

I’ll be writing songs till I die. There’s just no question.

The more you listen, the more your hear.

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.

You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.

My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often -in fact, mostly -at the expense of everything else in my life.

One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out.