Toots Thielemans

Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.

There’s only one bass player in a band. I’m the best bass player of any band I’m in.

I don’t have a definition of Jazz. You’re just supposed to know it when you hear it.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

I am a devout musician.

I sought some kind of freedom in music, in the promise of transcendence and the idea that the purity and the innocence of a mythical god could somehow deliver me from darkness.

I’m believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a ‘universal musical mind.’

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.

10% of musicians make 90% of the money, while the remaining 90% of musicians make the 10% that’s left.

I wanted to do the music, but not at the expense of being happy.

If the bass plays the root, a pianist superimposes a Maj7 built on the 5th and the sax plays the 13th, will hot women notice?

Jazz stresses less on technical exhibitionism and much more on emotional content.

Play the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you play.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

Jazz is not to be sliced into bites by mass marketing geniuses who assume we are mindless cattle.