Scott LaFaro

I have a deep respect for harmony, melodic patterns and form.

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

When you make a sound, it carries on to infinity. Sound is a vibration. Vibration is energy. All of that survives in space long after we’re dead. When I walk on stage at the Wiener Staatsoper, I can feel the footsteps of Chopin and Rachmaninov.

Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.

If you don’t know what it is, don’t mess with it.

The saxophone is actually a translation of the human voice, in my conception. All you can do is play melody. No matter how complicated it gets, it’s still a melody.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn’t go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.

For me, the main thing is spontaneity and taking chances.

People now have been conditioned to believe they should only buy one song at a time, that nobody can make an entire record that would merit you paying, you know, $7, $8, $10 when CDs in the ’90s were $18, $19 and people bought millions and millions and millions of them.

Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

Musicianship is using your two ears.

I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy and Bird.

Somebody asked me once, ‘Do you think that swing will ever come back?’ And I said, ‘Do you think the 1938 Form will ever come back?’

You have a mentor or teacher and you learn all he can show you.

I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you’re tired and that’s all there is to it.