Roy Hargrove

Let the music speak for itself.

I love to hear the note sing.

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

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

External instruments are only extensions of the biological instrument.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

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

Listening is more important than anything because that’s what music is. Somebody is playing something and you’re receiving it.

When I got started in New York, if you were different from Miles and Dizzy it was very difficult.

Words are the children of reason and therefore can’t translate the feeling of Jazz because they’re not part of it.

A great song can pull me out of a slump and lighten my heart.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. The blues didn’t have to explain the mystery of pain that I felt; it was there in the songs and voices of singers like Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, in the cries of their guitars.

It became a kind of a game, to remember the things that had happened five minutes ago. I would start making notes about the things I was doing, on an instrument that was foreign to me, the guitar, so it was just a fun way of doing cognitive therapy. I was none the wiser to it until I began to improve and my ability to speak began to come back.

When you’re creating your own shit, even the sky ain’t the limit.

The music scene is more competitive in the States.

It’s important to find your own voice and do something of your own.