I wish you wouldn't make the strings such an important part of your arrangements because frankly they're only a tax dodge! -Tommy Dorsey (to arranger Nelson Riddle)-

Tastes are created by the business interests. How else can you explain the popularity of Al Hirt?
-Charles Mingus-

The outer space beings are my brothers. They sent me here. They already know my music.
-Sun Ra-

I discovered early in life that if you take gym first period, you can go into the wrestling room and sit in the corner and sleep.
-Paul Desmond-

I was very happy and secure until I went into the army. Then I started to feel there was something I should know that I didn't know.
-Bill Evans-

I've never heard anything Wynton (Marsalis) played sound like it meant anything at all. Wynton has no voice and no
presence. His music sounds like a talented high-school trumpet player to me…He's jazzy the same way someone
who drives a BMW is sporty.
-Keith Jarrett-

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.
-Paul Whiteman-

As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
-Miles Davis-

I don't expect people who listen to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to come hear me. I accept that reality.
-Cecil Taylor-

Are big bands coming back? Sure, every football season.
-Woody Herman-

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread-without it, it's flat.
-Carmen McCrae-

Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout.
-Melvin Maddocks-

Playing "bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
-Duke Ellington-

My feeling is, music is a more eloquent international language than Coca-Cola or McDonalds.
-Paul Horn-

I don't want no drummer. I set the tempo.
-Bessie Smith-

I am the world's laziest writer.
-Oscar Peterson-

If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music.
-Charles Mingus -

Miles was a soul man, a sound, a black Bogey. He was also an insufferable prick.
-Albert Goldman-

How could you not be influenced by reading the same idiocies in ten different jazz journals?
-Boris Vian-

It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
-Dizzy Gillespie-

I don't mind being the butt of a joke-if it's a funny joke.
-Kenny G.-

Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.
-Wynton Marsalis-

Those people were mavericks. The only person who wanted them was me. I mean, was Gene Krupa hard to get? Was Bunny Berigan hard to get?
-Benny Goodman-

I spent a lot of time playing in miserable places that were not a lot of fun. Somebody once said it is character building and I was like 'My character is just fine.'
-Diana Krall-