Music chooses her musicians.
You know at an early age if you have a talent for music.
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.
Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.
I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.
It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales. I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.
Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.
Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.
Jazz? has no boundaries.
If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.
I can’t understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out and look at it?
Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
I love Jazz because it has the perfect balance of discipline and freedom.
It’s not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.
Working with Benny was important for me and for black musicians in general.
Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.
Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet, put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’
