Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Prince is from the school of James Brown, and I love James Brown because of all the great rhythms he plays.
Space music'd be really something... but they don't have no gravity up there. You couldn't have no downbeat!
So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It's over; it's on the record.
Drummers - sometimes they play and they listen. And that little listen takes a speck away from the right tempo.
It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.
I can hear what I want [people] to play. If you don't hear what you want someone to play, then you can't tell 'em.
It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.
We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.
You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.
If you have a tone like mine that is recognizable. No matter what I play, when you hear my tone you can tell it's me.
He comes in on the beat and plays on top of the beat. I think when Prince makes love, he hears drums instead of Ravel.
It's like swimmin' without warmin' up, yuo know what I mean? So [cackles] we use the drum machine, and we take it out.
At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.
I said to [Lionel] Richie, "Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs."
I was minding my own business when something says to me, "you ought to blow trumpet." I have just been trying ever since.
If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.
My father's rich, my momma's good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I've never suffered and don't intend to suffer.
Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.
That's the way women do. The frown. They want to give you the attitude to approach them back, by giving you a negative vibe.
Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist.
You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.
It's like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of s-- is that, but white people's s--?
Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.
It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just there and I don't question it.
Prince got some Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix and Sly in him, also, even Little Richard. He's a mixture of all those guys and Duke Ellington.
I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
In other words, an instrument should be an extension of you; it's supposed to sound like you - the way you walk, the way you dress, you know.
If I hear a song like "Time After Time." I'm sittin' there lookin' at video and Cindy Lauper comes on singin' this song. I said, "God damnnnnn!"
Japanese people they hear my warmin' up and they start screamin'. They can tell it's me.It's my tone on the trumpet, it sounds like I'm speakin'.
I don't like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there's no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don't know.
When I'm playing, I'm never through. It's unfinished. I like to find a place to leave for someone else to finish it. That's where the high comes in.
If you love them in the morning with their eyes full of crust; if you love them at night with their hair full of rollers, chances are, you're in love.
With "We Are The World," I can't even eat when I watch that on television. If I'm eatin' some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.
I keep telling Ron Lorman and them in the control room, "It's my band! The reason I have a band is because I can't stand for somebody to tell me what to do."
In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.
If I have a dynamite bass player - I have Darryl Jones - it's so easy to write for him because he's such a funky kid and he's gifted. He's like a little genius.
It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?
He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.
You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.
When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they're still here and passing it on to others.
I don't pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is myself...and I'm too vain to play anything I think is bad.
Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.
Catch Harry Belafonte. He's got a helluva rhythm section.And so have the Pointer Sisters. And that little guy with Sammy Clayton. He plays the whole show with 40 members.
I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.
I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
When I went in there, we used drum machine on "Time After Time" and "Human Nature".We don't use the drum machine to play a pattern. You play the pattern by being consistent.
That was my gift . . . having the ability to put certain guys together that would create a chemistry and then letting them go; letting them play what they knew, and above it.
I don't wanna talk about Teo [Macero]. He's a helluva musician, a brilliant musician, but he's just not for me, that's all. I can elaborate on it, but I don't want to do that.
What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.
If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.