Sonny Rollins Quotes

Jazz voices that unvanquishable, natural will toward creaativity and self-expression, depite everything, in the here and now.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

It was liberating to do comedy. It felt like playing in a jazz band.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

I was curious and hungry at a young age, and jazz was such a mystery to me, an ocean where you can express yourself in the moment. It represented freedom, it represented wearing wings and going somewhere with music.

There is spontaneity to my work.

I loved the freedom of improvised music.

Why not do something strange and different for once? Artists can do whatever they want!

If nobody throws all their rules at you, you might make a song with no introduction.

I love the joy in the improvisational creative process.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

I don't follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

It's really easy to project this whole ideology of what being an artiste is, and I'm just not down with intellectualizing it. I just think, if you feel like doing something, then do it.

Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty.

As a creative person, you want to start with a blank canvas.

We stand for creativity and pushing boundaries and having fun with one's music.

I associate creativity with independent music.

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

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

There's never any pressure on the music having to be something.

I just want to be able to be creative.