Terri Lyne Carrington

Women bring something different to an instrument if they are respectful of their feminine aesthetic.

Once you have been bitten by the Jazz bug, it is not a choice anymore.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

Women have not been socialized to play drums. It’s not natural for us to hit thing.

Trios offer simple instrumentation, but the orchestral possibilities are so profound.

I do Jazz, Blues, Country and so forth. I do them all like a good utility man.

My improvisations are a beguiling mixture of the vertical and the horizontal.

Of course there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

I hear beauty and elegance combined with passion and fire.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

Music chooses her musicians.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

Playing the guitar is like telling the truth – you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don’t have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don’t have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It’s you.

A wise man practices slowly; but a wiser man practices even slower.

You have to sound sad first, then maybe later you can sound good.

I’m trying to get people to see that we are our brother’s keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

Invest yourself in everything you do. There’s fun in being serious.