Horn Playing Quotes

I put quite a bit of study into the horn, that's true. In fact, the neighbors threatened to ask my mother to move once, you know.

When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly.

It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically I love to talk just off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about.

You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played

You can't take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I've been playing 50 years, and that's what I've been doing in order to keep in that groove there.

Some days you get up and put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win. Some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die and the horn wins.

There's a lot of music at my fingertips that I can be influenced by. And just because I play a horn, I don't need to sound, or try to capture, what was happening before me. I can just respect it and learn from it.

Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops... I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.

I first began with the recorder in our community music school. After that, I played horn and participated in the school orchestra.

My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn.

You are an instrument if you understand your voice and how to use it - this sound, that sound and certain ranges and different pitch. Within that I try to find a rhythm and play the voice as if it was a horn.

I wake up in the morning, I do a little stretching exercises, pick up the horn and play.