Ron Carter

I am from the planet of elegance.

A good bassist determines the direction of any band.

Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now.

I try to practice with my life.

Music is like wine, the less you know about it the sweeter you like it. 

I look for a deep, gutty feelin’ in a guitar tone. I don’t use picks. People ask, “How you get that?” It’s just there. There’s a lot of people try to play real fast chords-da da da da da-that ain’t the hard, solid blues. It’s synthetic. It has not feeling to it. You sit down and play some funky, funky guitar. Take your time! Don’t rush it. Just let it come flowing through you. I can play guitar so funky, it’ll bring teardrops to your eyes.

To this day, I don’t like people walking on stage not looking good. You have to look good. If you feel special about yourself then you’re going to play special.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

I think the one thing that I’ve learned is that you cannot predict what’s going to happen. You can’t sit back and try to figure out what people want or leave it up to them to decide. When we all started in this business we would dictate to the audience what was great and they picked up on that based on the fact that we believed that it was great. But that’s all changed. What’s happened in the last ten years or so because is that the technology now means that everyone with a computer can make music and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

I fell in love with Jazz when I was 12 listening to Duke Ellington and hearing a lot of Jazz in New York on the radio.

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 music is a special skill that has brought pleasure to millions throughout the world.

I like the music. I love it and live it in fact, but for me the business part just plain stinks.

For most dates I was paid the sum of $1 per hr and they always tipped me at the end of the night.

I let my body play what’s in my heart. I play life instead of notes. I play what I lived.

There’s millions and millions of people who think Les Paul is a guitar!