Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm into scales right now.
Keep a thing happenin' all throughout.
You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.
Damn the rules, it's the feeling that counts.
Change is inevitable in music - things change.
I want to be the force which is truly for good.
All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.
I think I know what it is but don't ask me to play it
I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.
Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.
One positive thought produces millions of positive vibrations.
Invest yourself in everything you do. There's fun in being serious.
The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
All of the technique doesn't matter... only if the feeling is right.
Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.
Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.
Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person.
God breathes through us so completely...So gently we hardly feel it...yet it is our everything.
God breathes through us so completely... so gently we hardly feel it... yet, it is our everything.
Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.
When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.
Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.
I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of people.
I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.
I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of the people.
I'd like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.
I believe that men are here to grow themselves into the best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.
All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.
I find it's only when something is trying to come through I really practice. And then, I don't know how many hours. It's all day.
When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.
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.
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.
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 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.
The real risk is not changing. I have to feel that I'm after something. If I make money, fine. But I'd rather be striving. It's the striving, man, it's that I want.
If you're bourgeois, money is it. It's all the questions and all the answers. Ain't no E-flat or color blue, only $12.98 or $1,000. If it isn't money, it isn't nothing.
My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it through my music. If you can live it, there's no problem about the music, because it's part of the whole thing.
From a technical viewpoint, I have certain things I'd like to present in my solos. To do this, I have to get the right material. It has to swing, and it has to be varied.
My mother had aspirations to become a concert singer. Her Methodist Minister father didn't approve of young girls leaving home until they married, so she had to pass it up.
I've been devoting quite a bit of my time to harmonic studies on my own, in libraries and places like that. I've found you've got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.
There are so many things to be considered in making music. The whole question of life itself... I know that I want to produce beautiful music, music that does things to people that they need.
Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.
I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.
I think that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of the human being itself, does express just what is happening - the whole of human experience at the particular time that it is being expressed.
I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.
Considering the great heritage in music that we have - the work of the giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come - I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically.
Sometimes you have to take a thing when it comes and be glad. I first began to feel this way in '57, when I started to get myself together musically, although at the time I was working academically and technically.