Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Experiment is actually doing the art. That's the experiment and then you get to experience the experiment.
Black people, we built America, and we gave it all of its pop culture and all of its great musical genres.
The mind is a great gift, but it has to be quieted down in order to feel, hear and see the presence of God.
I'm happy to have the opportunity to record the records I want to - I'm very aware that that's a privilege.
Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.
What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.
I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.
One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.
Bill Evans described his tunes as vehicles; they are vehicles for self-expression, or expression of the self.
I started to play Jazz music in my early teens. A boyfriend brought records over, so I listened to everything
He explained how ridiculous the clowning was, and there and then I decided to settle down and play seriously.
I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.
I love music so much I love what I do. I work very hard at being the best musician I can be because I love it.
Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.
It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.
But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.
I had the house rhythm section at a club called the Sundown in Hartford. Stan Getz came up and played with us.
I have a West Coast rhythm section and a New York rhythm section. I've got them spread out all over the place.
So if I think of something in my head I don't have to do it. If I can't do I don't do it, I do something else.
Although I do feel that with a show like ours we ourselves are getting a lot more young listeners at concerts.
I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter.
Music can shoot through the musician like lightening through the sky if that music is unobstructed by thoughts.
Billie Holiday's voice was the voice of living intensity of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word.
My music is always called "cerebral." It is a way of saying I'm Asian, and therefore everything I do is brainy.
All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel... and that's what I've been doing all my life.
When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being?
My mother gave me a choice. She said, 'Would you like to take singing lessons or piano.' I'm glad I chose piano.
I don't require lust, sex, or classic beauty; I require trust, respect, and honesty. All else builds from there.
This is the last sentence of my dissertation: "What is soul in music if not powerfully embodied human presence?"
All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.
Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie.
I never bothered about keeping track.Every now and then someone records one of my songs, and I get credit for it.
[Goodman] became famous (or notorious) for staring at a player he didn't like. It was called 'the ray' by his men.
Any woman who has a great deal to offer the world is in trouble. And if she's a black woman, seh's in deep trouble.
I think all record companies should be run by a musician. Just as you wouldn't trust your health to an electrician.
The quickest way to become troubled is to be concerned with what people are gonna say about your life and your work.
The music is within your heart, your soul, your spirit, and this is all I did when I sat at piano. I just go within.
The very fine line between loneliness and solitude, reflection; being alone, always appealed to me when I was a kid.
I call myself a teacher because they want me to call myself a teacher, but actually, what I'm doing is I'm studying.
I really love the piano and I feel very fortunate that I am able to play and travel all over the world as my career.
I want to make sure that I represent a variety of backgrounds and that represents the reality out here in the world.
Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.
I grew up hard. I picked cotton and plowed with the mule and fixed the cars and played with the guitar and the piano.
It's made music more accessible with YouTube and the ability to trade audio files. But it hasn't made it more popular.
Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.
Grab your pig's feet, bread, and gin, there's plenty in the kitchen. I wonder what the poor people are eating tonight?
I've noticed that the more adventurous and in that mode that I am, it seems that the more the audience really likes it.
Whenever I heard a musician do something that I could not explain, I went back to the theory in order to figure it out.
I don't look at music from the standpoint of being a musician; I look at it from the standpoint of being a human being.
Instead of hearing, "Oh, he's good," I'd rather hear, "Wow, you changed my feelings today, you made me feel different."