Les Paul

There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can’t go there. So I’m back to Count Basie lifting his hand. And I find you can stop that show with one note just like you can with a hundred.

We go in there and we work on altering those ideas and in many cases go in different directions.

I got the mumps. They threw me in a crib so I wouldn’t roll out onto the floor. And there’s a big bay window in my house, and that window stayed perfectly still until that train started to chug. At a certain speed, I could reach up and feel the pane, and that glass pane would vibrate. I said, Doggone, there’s got to be a reason for this. So I go to the kindergarten teacher, and she takes me to the science teacher, and the science teacher takes me to the library and reads it off to me — “This is called resonance.” That was the beginning.

No, working is what will keep you alive.

I was walking down the street, and I saw a sewer digger on his lunch hour open his lunch pail, dig out a harmonica, knock out the cracker crumbs, and play a bunch of tunes on it. I was fascinated by that harmonica, so I stared the guy out of it. I just stared at him. He said, ‘Here, kid, take it. Get out of here.’

A guitar is something you can hold and love and it’s never going to bug you. But here’s the secret about the guitar – it’s defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.

I was a singing disc jockey who heard every type of music there was – and loved it all.

I’m glad I don’t have perfect pitch because it can drive you crazy.

You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.

The way I think about the practicing, it is my undercover work.

Music is the shorthand of emotion

Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

I’ve never thought the blues was a matter of copying other people. The blues singer should sing songs about his own life. And once the ball got rolling, I felt confident enough to do that as well as cover other people’s songs, and the tributes. You’ve got to think about representing your own life in the music, and for me that meant bringing in an element of jazz; I was brought up on jazz, it was my father’s work, it was in the house.

I play as I feel.

I think you can play anything you wanna as long as you take the audience along with you.

Jazz? has no boundaries.

As far as music school goes, I walked through Berkelee one time.