Joe Venuti

I was not prepared to play the role of singer in the camp of the warriors

I like to know for whom I’m writing – it makes the composition easier to do.

Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

The trio is the biggest sound you can have with the smallest unit.

Miles told me not to use vibrato because when you get old, you’re going to shake anyway.

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy… all the things that humans have.

There’s only one bass player in a band. I’m the best bass player of any band I’m in.

Just ’cause I’ve forgotten more than I can play, doesn’t mean it’s not Improv.

A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!

You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.

The guitar chose me.