Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
Simplicity is a most complex form.
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
There is no art without intention.
Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
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.
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.
Critics have their purposes, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
I like any and all of my associations with music -writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.
San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world – one of the really urbane communities in the United States – one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world.
Every man prays in his own language.
It’s like an act of murder-you play with intent to commit something.
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Hurry, get on board, it’s comin’, listen to those rails a-thrumming all aboard. Get on the “A” train, soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem.
Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.