Eddie Condon Quotes

The trumpet is forceful.

The piano ain't got no wrong notes.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

With few exceptions, music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

The soprano turned out to sound to me like the right hand on the piano.

It does just boil down to music.

When you're playing the part of a saxophone or a trumpet player, both of which I have done, it would be nice to be able to play like John Coltrane, but you can't. Your job is to do something else. And I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think I'd be acting Niels Bohr any better if I went and studied physics for five years.

In symphonic music, when you are conducting, you do the same thing. You are feeling the whole orchestra, thinking ahead so you can prepare for a change.

Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way.

Scales played in the correct musical way are very exciting and rewarding.

I do a mean mouth trumpet.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

Reading music is like listening to flowers. I don't understand the concept.

I don't ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical. It's all music.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.

My heart leaps at the trumpet's voice.

When it comes to songs and music, yeah, people love to sing and dance and play music and tunes, and that stream of consciousness that exists in music, nobody knows where that comes from.

When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads

Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence.

Gonna wind it up on my guitar. Gonna make that silver sing.

In music, silence is more important than sound.