Nat King Cole

I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.

If I could read it, I could play it.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

Only time, education and plenty of good schooling will make anti-segregation work.

For years the trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We starved.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

I am a devout musician.

The hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know: You feel this, you play this.

I don’t believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from.

People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.

Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

I don’t have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapy is in art.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.

If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.

I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

As long as musicians have passion for spontaneity and creating something that’s never been before, Jazz will flourish.

You want the listener to find the song on their own, give too much away and it takes away from the imagination.