”Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it’s in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance.”
– Benny Goodman

“Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.”
– Johnny Griffin

”There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. They are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.”
– Stan Getz

“There used to be a thing where people would say, ‘this is not jazz! Blah, blah, blah. It’s supposed to sound like this.’ Whenever there’s a prescription for what something is supposed to be, to look like or sound like, then to me, that’s a statue.”
– Wayne Shorter

”If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.”
– Charlie Parker

”Gray skies are just clouds passing over.”
– Duke Ellington

”Hot can be cool, and cool can be hot, and each be both.
But hot or cool man, jazz is jazz.”
– Louis Armstrong

”It’s all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.”
– Sonny Rollins