Trombone Shorty Quotes

I don't really listen to bassists - not anymore. When I was younger, I listened to those guys and was trying to figure out everything they did. Nowadays, I draw inspiration from everybody.

I think jazz is a wonderful learning tool.

But, I would be naive not to recognize the number of musicians who tell me they have been influenced by me and sight me - as well as Alex and Neil - as a musician who has been a positive influence on their playing.

Chick Corea was a great influence on me, musically, as I was growing up.

In New Orleans, people are still influenced by one another. You got these bands that play every week on Frenchmen Street, and on their breaks, they might go see the reggae band that's right next door. You might get the musicians from the reggae band to sit in with the brass musicians. Everyone is having fun.

My father was a studio musician, played for a lot of people like Frank Zappa and a lot of R&B bands, and was always gone doing that. Then when he was home, he was practicing. And so I always saw it, and I always wanted to do what he did.

When you are surrounded by talented musicians, you learn so much from them.

I trained in Hindustani, and then I went to music school.

When I was a little kid wanting to play music, it was because of people like Pete Johnson, Huey Smith, Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Art Neville ... there was so many piano players I loved in New Orleans. Then there was guys from out of town that would come cut there a lot. There was so many great bebop piano players, so many great jazz piano players, so many great Latin piano players, so many great blues piano players. Some of those Afro-Cuban bands had some killer piano players. There was so many different things going on musically, and it was all of interest to me.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

The way I like to think about it is, even though I started music early - I started in classical music - it wasn't until I discovered jazz that I really fell in love with music and realized this was what I wanted to do for a living.

I've always been singing all my life, but I started playing guitar when I was 19, and that was my final year in university, in law school. I think that happened when I started making a lot of friends who were in the independent music scene.

I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation - that constant conversation and tension - I've always wanted in every genre and song that I perform.

I started dance class when I was a little kid, and then, when I turned 11, I started taking vocal lessons, guitar lessons, and piano lessons.

As far as music, Louis Armstrong is one of my heroes.

Tom Waits is someone who has really struck me, ever since I was a kid. He's really a big deal for me.

I've always wanted to sing and to be an entertainer. After high school, I moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles and started songwriting. But I didn't really get serious until then.

I'm trying to focus on my job. I don't think that being famous is a job. My job is composing, singing, performing, but not being a star.

I love Glenn Gould. Max Steiner. John Williams. Louis Prima. Benny Goodman. Miles Davis. John Philip Sousa.

We have started to make music at age seven. That was a hard work.

Different people have different ways of doing things. For me, becoming a songwriter first and falling in love with the Nashville songwriting community and the process of songs and getting better and putting more in what I wanted to say, was absolutely vital in me even wanting to be an artist.

I find myself, the more I grow up the more I hang around creatives, musicians. I find them more inspiring to be around. I'd probably say that. The more creative you are - I get along with them better. There is more of an understanding.

Teach music and singing at school in such a way that it is not a torture but a joy for the pupil; instill a thirst for finer music in him, a thirst which will last for a lifetime.

I learned from my teachers but became through my music

I just want people to see my growth as an artist, and singer.