It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible.
... it took me five years of going right into the mouth of the lion to learn to be at ease onstage ... if you deal with an audience as a bunch of people having a great time, you'll have a much bettrer time as a performer
Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.
Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.
There's a certain groove you pick that makes the music flow, and when you have it it's in your pocket. It's the feeling behind the rhythm to me, the hardest thing to strive for is that feeling, behind the groove.
Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has.
A mathematician will recognise Cauchy, Gauss, Jacobi or Helmholtz after reading a few pages, just as musicians recognise, from the first few bars, Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert.
Who told you I was a musician?
I think music as we know it, is autobiographical.
One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport.
I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing.
I'm not here for your amusement. You're here for mine.
Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all.
The history of a people are found in its songs.
The fabulous places I've been, wonderful things that've happened, great people I've met ought to make a story.
The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.
Rock 'n' roll will never die. There'll always be some arrogant little brat who wants to make music with a guitar.
Music is supposed to create an associate level, wherein I and you and you and I can associate without any misunderstanding.
Not to deny that it is a thinking people's music, but when I listen to music if I ever catch myself thinking, I'm in trouble--I know something is wrong.
You can't sing about love unless you know about it.
A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.
I would like to be a scholar in whatever I do, a scholar is never finished, he is always seeking and I am always seeking.
The Steinway piano is the most harmonious implement for musical intention. It completes what is beautiful and artistic.
Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden!
This is what I want in heaven... words to become notes and conversations to be symphonies.
