David Amram Quotes

I played French horn, and I certainly do miss it. I miss it. I wish I had the time to keep up with it. It's like exercising: You have to keep it up, especially the muscles in your lips to deal with the French horn.

I had a jazz trio, a rock n' roll band, and I played drums in junior high, high school, college, big bands, and I played timpani in the symphony. I am a drummer. It's the one instrument I actually play pretty well. It's just hard to carry on your back.

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.

I actually met Chick Corea in New York, where I was staying with a bass player friend.

I got my first trumpet when I was six years old, from Al Hirt. My father was playing in Al Hirt's band at that time.

In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.

The first job I ever had was singing in a jazz club when I was like 15 with my friend, and we earned like 70 bucks. We were like, 'Oh my God!'

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn't have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that - except I couldn't afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

Then I took 8 years of French Horn, first jazz, and then classical.

I love the French horn.

I had not been in the jazz environment, having been brought up in the church. But once I got to New York, and I was signed to perform at The Village Gate and the Vanguard and clubs like that, and these - the Vanguard was one of the most elite, if not the most elite, jazz club out there.

I always felt like the trumpet or trombone player was always the coolest dude in the room.

Someday, I hope to do a jazz club tour.

I played saxophone for a while when I was a kid.

I want to be the jazz singer.

Listening to Benny [Goodman] talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.

Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.

When I first organized the King Cole Trio back in 1937, we were strictly what you would call an instrumental group. To break the monotony, I would sing a few songs here and there between the playing. I sang things I had known over the years. I wasn't trying to give it any special treatment, just singing. I noticed thereafter people started requesting more singing, and it was just one of those things.

I bought my first bass because I wanted to be in a Band, and heard that it was the easiest instrument to play. A friend told me that it was the sexiest instrument.

I thought, If I'm gonna run a jazz club, if I've got Miles Davis' posters in my bar, I should at least know what his horn sounds like.

The electric guitar was vital in helping what I've achieved where would I be without it? Playing awfully quietly, for a start.

There's so much that can be done on the guitar. And that's what is so good about the guitar - everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it's all about.

I always tell my students when you're going to be a jazz musician the first thing you've got to do is be a professional musician, and that means you have to feed yourself with the instrument.

I got to be about 13 and everyone started playing guitars and being in rock bands. There was no place for me with my trumpet and I wasn't cool anymore. Although now if I played the trumpet it would be the coolest thing in the world.

I play in a jazz sextet. So I don't have time to do a lot of conventions. The good thing is, when I do them, it does puts me back in touch with the people who go to movies. I do these shows just to stay in touch with them.