Lee Konitz Quotes

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

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

I focused on the saxophone ever since high school. It wasn't until my album 'Poetica,' which I recorded in 2006, that I went back to the clarinet. It felt like it was waiting for me!

I'm a little musically inclined; I play the clarinet and the saxophone.

I actually wanted to be a drummer, but I didn't have any drums.

Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.

I have not practiced saxophone since 1980. I mean, not one note. I do not pick it up in my house, and that's the end of it.

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 play drums, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, french horn, piano.

I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, 'What do you want to play?' I said the drums, and my mother said, 'No, you don't. You don't want to play the drums.' So I said, 'Maybe the trumpet would be cool.' And my mother said, 'I don't think so.' And then the clarinet was handed to me.

As a musician, your instrument is almost predetermined. I had played drums, piano, clarinet, but when I heard Wayne Shorter play the saxophone, I knew that sound is what I wanted.

I played saxophone for 15 years. I played out. It never reached any kind of a level that was recording or anything.

I was focusing on sax while at Berklee, but then I started to play Brazilian choro and Colombian music. I was doing more folkloric stuff on the clarinet because it works better. Finally, I realized I was working more on the clarinet than the saxophone, and I started to feel more comfortable on it.

I'm working really hard to get the clarinet out of that hole, that Benny Goodman thing.

I remember when I was little, my mom asked me, 'Would you like to play the violin or the piano?' I looked at that giant monster and said to myself - I am not going to lock myself on that bench the whole day. This is small and lightweight. I can play from standing, sitting or walking.

I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.

I played saxophone and trumpet. Pretty nerdy.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

I set myself up to be a bass guitarist and bass players get a lot more work than people like me.

I've actually been playing music ever since I was a young a kid. I got my first guitar when I was about 7 or 8 years old, so I've always been doing music.

I kinda always wanted to be a tenor player, but I'm a small guy, and tenor was just too big.

I grew up playing the saxophone. I joined the jazz band in high school, but somewhere along the way I realized the guys who strummed acoustic guitars at parties were the ones who got the attention. So I asked a friend to show me a few chords, and when I moved to L.A. I spent a lot of time practicing my guitar.

I became a professional musician and played all kinds of music. I played bluegrass, I played classical music, and for many years, I played jazz.

I started playing trumpet when I was 11 years old. All I wanted to be was a jazz trumpet player when I grew up.