I’m not messing around with nobody’s woman. If I want a woman I go get her – you know what I mean?
You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
If you don’t know what to play, play nothing.
There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.
All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.
Music is the framework around the silence.
I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.
Joao Gilberto on guitar could read a newspaper and sound good.
There are no wrong notes.
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.
If you’re trying to be hip, be hip.
Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He’s nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I’d do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.
John Lee Hooker is the funkiest man alive.
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.
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads.
Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk’s music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.