Ornette Coleman Quotes

I had business experience. I had made my living designing and building electronic equipment. Basic business was not new to me, but the music business was completely new to me. I knew nothing about distribution, or any of those things.

So why sign your name in blood for more? It seemed like a sensible arrangement for me. I didn't sell large numbers of records and the record company paid advances they rarely recouped.

If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.

The problem that I have is with the music business. For some reason it seems almost impossible to get anything, any music, released which includes improvisation or soloing.

I have always abhorred the business end of music.

The music business is one of a few places where everything you've heard about it seems entirely cliche, but it's true.

If you had ever heard my album you would know that I could never consider the music business!

Most artists, you know, you spend their entire lives learning how to play music and write songs, and they don't really know how the music business works.

When I was 17-years-old, I was in the music business.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.

Mostly I've never let record companies become involved with my music, which was a very smart thing that my first manager Dave Robinson did, to keep them out of it.

Music can be so disturbing and frustrating. I mean the business side of it. The actual making music part is fun, but the business side of it is just so out of control, has nothing to do with anything.

The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.

So it was out of necessity that Blackheart was born. I think it's great that now, 25 years later, we're not only putting out our own music, but are able to put out music by other bands. That's really exciting for us.

The bricks and mortar of the music business, they don't exist any longer.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

Doing things in my day was simple: you either signed to a big label or you signed to a very small label, and you worked with that one, and then they eventually signed you on to a big one.

When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music... Now, record companies are run by lawyers and accountants.

I never had many problems to do my music and to give it to a record company. Rarely do they try to argue with me about my music, probably because it's still too far-out.

I don't want a record company, but I need one, unfortunately.

Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big.

The Shades never recorded anything, Little Daddy and the Bachelors recorded a couple of records, ya.

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.

You learn at a certain point that you have to focus on the business side of music. After getting ripped off a couple of times, you figure out that you need to get a grip on it.