Ornette Coleman

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we've forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We've separated music from life.

You don't have to worry about being a number one, number two, or number three. Numbers don't have anything to do with placement. Numbers only have something to do with repetition.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

So, for instance, if you came to me, I'd ask, 'Do you want to write? Do you want to improvise? Why do you want to play this instrument? What do you want to do?'

That's what I was trying to say when we were talking about sound. I think that every person, whether they play music or don't play music, has a sound - their own sound, that thing that you're talking about.

It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.

I decided, if I'm going to be poor and black and all, the least thing I'm going to do is to try and find out who I am. I created everything about me.

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

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.