Ornette Coleman

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

How can I turn emotion into knowledge? That’s what I try to do with my horn.

After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that’s how I ended up just being a saxophone player.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time.

I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. ‘Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

You don’t have to live the blues to play the blues.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.

Know the business; you need to know the business side of things.

A good bassist determines the direction of any band.

How can I turn emotion into knowledge? That’s what I try to do with my horn.

I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.

The word “jazz” means to me no category, but when you get stuck into wanting to do something the way it was with the “jazz emblem” or logo chained around your neck, you play in a frozen moment in time and you keep fermenting the ‘fifties saying jazz should be this way or that. Well, if jazz to me means no category, then I’ve got the green light And if it sounds like.. sounds like.. sounds like, and keeps crossing over, it’s what I wanted to do in the first place. I like the way Stravinsky and those guys did things. They expressed something, if not themselves. In fact, some people talk about expression, but expression really doesn’t mean anything to me because there’s a lot of work which goes into building a drama and then it’s up to other people to offer “expression.” Expression is such a nebulous thing.

We all do ‘do, re, mi’ but you got to find the other notes yourself.

You can’t go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.

There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.

I started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.

Do not fear mistakes, there are none.

I play whatever the hell comes out… that’s it.

I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.

All this is saying is, OK I see now, the ‘hood does not quite want Shirley Bassey yet, so let me still give them this. Crack Music was made after Diamonds. After black people were like, ‘I don’t know about this one.’ It was like me reaching too high for the cookie jar.