Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Generally, I like Indian music because the melodies are usually not too complex, which is how I like music, and that's the way I write music.
When you're dealing with music without words, titles are more a means of identification than anything else. What's the point of getting lofty?
Thankfully now, through the merciful hand of God, I do perceive and have been fully reinformed of his omnipotence. It is truly a love supreme.
To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.
In the year of 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening, which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.
Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I think the ordinary guy has just as much right to say 'This is a good song' as somebody who is in the music business.
When I first heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise. Something that people could understand, something that was beautiful.
I would think, of all the saxophones, the baritone would be the most logical instrument if anybody was adding a voice to the symphony orchestra.
The criticism is that it's too simple, but my feeling is it's more of a challenge making someone feel an emotion in four notes than in 25 notes.
I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.
Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first.
It's hard to get into Newsweek because, as more of our former intellectual magazines take on a pop focus, if there's no buzz, there's no interest.
I'm very serious about what I do. I practice every day for three hours. I work on my scales; I work on my tone. But otherwise, I like to have fun.
They call me before they go into production, when they have a prototype, and they call legitimate saxophonists, too. As opposed to the other kind.
In an inconspicuous way, Gretchen Parlato knows how to play the same instrument that Frank Sinatra played. There's no one out there like Gretchen.
I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.
With the sax, I learned technique well enough so that it feels like part of my body, and I just express myself. That's where I want to get in golf.
I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress...so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.
My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.
The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.
I learn something new every day - to edit, to take out all the extraneous matter and stress form, logic, and content. I try to play beautiful music.
Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same.
When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.
There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.
What is music anyway? It's a form of communication, and that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people.
I decided, if I'm going to be poor and black and all, the least thing I'm going to do is to try and find out who I am. I created everything about me.
I can't think of very many people who work as hard at the craft of songcraft as Gord Downie does. It was life or death. Every syllable was important.
I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music.
Go out on the stage as a human being and do not be afraid to show struggle in your music. It's a struggle in life and then struggle and then victory.
I prefer music where melody, harmony and rhythm come together and no one element overshadows the other. Jazz at its best is a democracy of creativity.
At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I've got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself.
It's all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.
If you listen to Louis Armstrong from 1929, you will never hear anything better than that really, and you will never hear anything more free than that.
Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.'
We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we've forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We've separated music from life.
I'm interested in music, not in my image. If someone plays something fantastic, that I could never have thought of, it makes me happy to know it exists.
I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.
I miss playing with Miles. I did play with him a little while before he left the planet, but even at that time I longed to maybe do some things together.
What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.
Some guys said 'Here's bop!' Wham! They said, 'Here's something we can make money on!' Wham! 'Here's a comedian!' Wham! Here's a guy who talks funny talk!'
To me, human existence exists on a multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional level, not just having to be identified with what you do and what you say.
Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.
It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.
Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music.
You know, when I'm playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I'm davening, I'm really telling it to the Wall.
Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor
I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?
You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.
Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor.
I have seen great jazz musicians die obscure and drinking themselves to death and not really being able to get any work and working in small, funky jazz clubs.