Lester Bowie Quotes

I don't think the singers take it as seriously as we used to. The words, the meaning, the phrasing, the feeling of the song. They see the words, they know the tune and they just sing it.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.

As a singer, you have to bring the soul to the song.

With James Brown, I just learn the lyrics and then get out there and get funky with it and let my spirit free. But doing Charles Bradley, it's a lot of true, intimate words coming out of me that show me the picture inside myself.

Just because you have developed the craft on your instrument doesn't mean that you don't have the ability to be expressive emotionally on that instrument, or vice versa.

I don't like to talk too much about my music; I like people to just experience it and not worry what I have to say.

A lot of people love men that rock; I love men that love a good melody and a good harmony.

I'm attached to the beat. The beat speaks words. I love music.

We have to put expressions in a song when we sing it.

I knew I loved music, and I knew that I could feel music. So, I knew I had rhythm.

I do like how the music can be misunderstood.

I am gentle. I think nearly everyone who makes music is sensitive - I don't care how hard they pretend they are.

If I'm proud of one thing in my playing, it's being able to slow it down and focus on the melody.

There's a quality to the sound of a trumpet that you can really twist for any kind of sound and mood that you want to create.

It was an unforgettable picture to see Chopin sitting at the piano like a clairvoyant, lost in his dreams; to see how his vision communicated itself through his playing, and how, at the end of each piece, he had the sad habit of running one finger over the length of the plaintive keyboard, as though to tear himself forcibly away from his dream.

The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential.

I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.

The theory is that you don't play a song the same way twice because it's jazz. That's where I'm coming from.

I like to use my voice as an instrument and just play along with the music. That's really how I tend to my voice. The content usually comes after or during that process of just trying to be an instrument.

When you try to put everything into music, there's no room left to try to make you think we're cool. We know you think we're cool.

I would like to play for audiences who are not using my music to stimulate their sex organs.

I listen to music a great deal. In a way, it's trying to express things that can't be expressed in words. That's something that interests me, too. Even though I use words to express myself, I am trying to, it seems to me, get beyond that.