The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.
Music is the only art that actually lives.
The band is a living, breathing thing. It grows in the same way we do as human beings and if it doesn't, it dies. It's important to feed the organism, and one way of doing that is to set musical challenges that keep it alive.
I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.
Music has to breathe and sweat. You have to play it live.
To see itself through, music must have idea or magic. ... Music with neither dies young though rich.
I believe deeply that jazz is still a very vital music that has much to say, not just to eggheads, or whatever the musical equivalent of an egghead is, but to ordinary people.
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
Today's records, even though they may be lyrically repetitive and not saying anything particularly heavy, they have energy.
Music is my breath, blood and food - without music I would perish; the actor in me would die.
