Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
There is no art without intention.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.
Everybody in Canada seemed to listen to what they enjoyed, and nobody could tell them what to like, or what was the popular, or what was the In thing. Even today, it is very hard to brainwash a Canadian.
Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven't; there's no proof of it.
My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of - or reincarnated from - royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being; blessedness comes from God.
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky.
A Satin Doll is a woman who is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.
If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original. ... I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. ... I don't need time, I need a deadline. ...There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. ... Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.
Roaming through the jungle of "Ohs" and "Ahs", searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
I don’t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again.
Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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