Ray Brown

Jazz is a complete lifestyle, something that you feel, something that you live.

The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.

I went up to his [Hank Jones’] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York.

I think pop music is one of the few things in the 20th century that have made giant strides in reverse.

This be an empty world without the blues.

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

We open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to arrive at something new and different.

Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you’re not feeling right, play a minor tune and it falls into place.

Check out the albums, … Check out the live performances. That’s the reality of it all. Music is such an energizing thing.

Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

Count don’t do nothin’. But it sure sounds good.

It’s always Jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of clothes she’s the same old broad.

I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

I want a kick to my band, but I don’t want the rhythm to hog the spotlight.

A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.