Dexter Gordon Quotes

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

You just keep playing. If someone special comes along and organizes it in a new way, then you'll have another approach and everybody will jump on it to try to learn.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

Musicians are always eclectic. Musicians are always curious and hungry for new things.

Always try and play with as many people as possible, even if it's not your style of music, because you will learn a lot.

I feel my voice can fit in many things so it's very interesting to combine things and music styles.

I'll never stick to one sound, I switch it up.

Me jumping on a song with Ariana Grande is just showing versatility, you know what I'm saying?

I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.

I never thought that I would be creating my own 'cross-over' genre. What I did was very real and organic. I have worked in so many different styles so it all just came together.

I think rock & roll has prepared me for a lot of flexibility.

I only have one note, let's be honest. But I'll play a different version of that one note.

Everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd loves different styles of music, and our minds are very open when it comes to writing our songs and making the band true to what the band is, but also stepping out and doing something current.

I just like blending all the genres together but blending them up in a good way. I try to be as free as I can with it.

It's like jazz: You learn the rules to break them - as long as you can break them in a meaningful way.

I improvise a lot and try something new every couple of years.

I try new stuff every time I perform. I have steps I do that I know are definite, and stuff I can make up right then and there and then forget.

I love experimenting; as a singer, one needs to be versatile.

If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong - you're not searching; you're not reaching for anything.

When I worked with my uncle, I loved the fact that jazz music demanded that you use your own unique approach.

The wonderful thing about Jazz is its willingness to take chances.

It's a great honor when somebody takes your song and does something different with it. That's what music is all about: to constantly change what somebody else has done.

There's been a lot of role reversal going on in the band. The roles people have been playing for a long time will always be there, but everybody's willing to try on different outfits.

I like to write in all different genres. I just like a new challenge.

Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.