Wes Montgomery Quotes

I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.

I feel very honored to be playing with Bill Pierce. He's such a great musician.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

Painting is something that you need to do, if not every day, then certainly most days. It is almost like being a pianist: if you stop, you lose something.

People's association with improvisation means one person playing an endless stream of notes over something, and it doesn't have to be.

Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.

I actually find a lot of parallels in jazz and cartooning.

Ornette Coleman is a real musician. He takes all of the things he's thinking about in the world - which is a whole universe upon universe - and translates this into music.

Phish is such a good band; they just make stuff up as a jam band.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

I started off playing the clarinet, after I was inspired by listening to my dad's Benny Goodman records.

I also like Western classical music and jazz.

I am a saxophone player.

My father was always playing the piano. He played all kinds of music - Gershwin, all kinds of stuff.

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

I play saxophone, I play tenor sax.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.

I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music.

I don't ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical. It's all music.

I always tell people that, just to be a bad jazz musician, you have to be better than most musicians. The worst jazz musicians are normally better than most musicians, because you have to know so much.

In 1956, I began playing in a band with Boz Scaggs.

Too many people judge a singer like Beyonce by what they see on the surface. Knowing the musicians she's worked with and how she works, I have a lot of respect for her.

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 loved the freedom of improvised music.