If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.
Interpretation
Experience in a smaller scene can be more valuable than competing in a bigger one.
Quincy Jones highlights the importance of local experience and growth, suggesting that working in a smaller, less competitive environment like Seattle provided valuable lessons that are often overshadowed by the grandeur of major cities like New York, where the pressure and competition from influential figures can be overwhelming.
In practice
In a music workshop discussing career paths, one might say, 'As Quincy Jones pointed out, experience in Seattle can be just as valuable as competing in New York.'
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
I've been writing a lot of road songs. Writing a lot of homesick songs. But once you start playing them out, it all ain't no secret anymore. Everyone knows how you feel.
I'm trying everything I can not to be jaded 'cause I don't like jaded musicians.
As long as there are kids who are pissed off and have no real way in venting out that anger, heavy metal will live on.
The bass is the link between harmony and rhythm. It is the foundation of a band. It is what all the other instruments stand upon, but it is rarely recognized as that.
I got a chance to work with Miles Davis, and that changed everything for me, 'cause Miles really encouraged all his musicians to reach beyond what they know, go into unknown territory and explore. It's made a difference to me and the decisions that I've made over the years about how to approach a project in this music.
It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.
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