My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference..

Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically..

Jazz is rhythm and meaning..

The singing of our sacred hymns, written by the servants of God, has a powerful effect in converting people to the principles of the Gospel, and in p….

I've outdone anyone you can name - Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500..

Appalachia is still, for American musicians, a kind of fountain of youth we always go back to, the old home place to a group of artists who represent….

Music has to breathe and sweat. You have to play it live..

And wheresoever, in his rich creation, Sweet music breathes--in wave, or bird, or soul-- 'Tis but the faint and far reverberation Of that great tune ….

I was devastated. I'm still devastated to this day. When talent like that disappears in a flash, you can't believe it. You deny it. Max Roach, who, o….

The piano is the social instrument par excellence... drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, the most massive of the devices by which….

[Miles Davis] learned from everyone. He was incredible. He took the best from everyone and threw away the rest. He was brilliant. One of the things h….

People with talent are not interested in showing off behind another person. They're more interested in the music. [Charlie Parker] was playing with m….

The focus on my appearance has really surprised me. I've always been a size 14 to 16, I don't care about clothes, I'd rather spend my money on cigare….

Nothing exists without music, for the universe itself is said to have been framed by a kind of harmony of sounds, and the heaven itself revolves unde….

Talent is only the starting point..

I think jazz is a beautiful, democratic music. It encourages musicians with very strong, and many times, very different points of view to work togeth….

Music fills the infinite between two souls..

Kind words are the music of the world..

Music first and last should sound well, should allure and enchant the ear. Never mind the inner significance..

Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away..

Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common..