I never sing a song the same way twice.
～Billie Holiday




A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
～Duke Ellington




It can't be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already.
But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different.
You got to pick the notes you really mean!
～Thelonious Monk




I believe in things that are developed through hard work. I always like people who have
developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication.
I think what they arrive at is usually a much deeper and more beautiful thing than the
person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.
～Bill Evans in Contemporary Keyboard, January 1981




[Jazz] went from the classics to ragtime to Dixieland to swing to bebop to cool jazz, . . .
But it's always jazz. You can put a new dress on her, a new hat, but no matter what kind of
clothes you put on her, she's the same old broad.
?`Lionel Hampton




The greatest feeling I ever had - in my clothes on - was when I first heard Diz and Bird
together in St. Louis, Missouri, back in 1944.
～Miles Davis




True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.
My people are Americans and my time is today.
～George Gershwin




A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.
～Benny Green




Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it,
it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music.
But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
～Charlie Parker




"What we play is life."
～Louis Armstrong




As I continue to write and study New Orleans music and Duke Ellington, I keep coming to more
and more conclusions about all of the things that are here in America for the musician to use.
The thing you have to try for is the emotional specificity that only comes from learning the
correct techniques for this art form. Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton had
the understanding in their music. So did King Oliver."
～Wynton Marsalis




"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."
～Miles Davis in Down Beat




While the Satchmo Legacy tour was under way, somebody asked Freddie Hubbard, "Why are you
wasting your time playing this old music?" Freddie replied: "Man, you'd be surprised how much
I'm learning - not only about myself, but about the musicians who came before me. You don't
realize at first when you listen to Armstrong's records how great this man was and how hard
that Hot Five music was to play. After the experience of reading and playing those parts,
I have an even greater respect for Louis Armstrong than before."
～from liner notes to "The Satchmo Legacy Band Salute to Pops Vol. 2" CD

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