Oscar Peterson Quotes

Mozart has written opera, symphony, sacred and chamber music - not to mention his piano and violin concerti.

People have made a living deconstructing Lennon and The Beatles songs because of their compositional sophistication. But what's so exciting about John is that he never had any of that training on musical theory; something just spoke to him, and he just knew what sounded right.

God gives you the gift of melody or He doesn't - it's as simple as that.

Needless to say, anybody who can stumble through a C-major scale knows that Art Tatum always gave his audiences 10 times their money's worth.

When I think of a lot of the players I admire, they could always play their parts without hiding behind distortion and sustain.

He [Benny Carter] is all that every jazz musician the world over wants to be. He's performed 20,000 nights. How many shoes have been shined? How much mascara put on? Rouge? How many of those impossible bowties have been tied? How many love songs have been sung? How many dances have been danced? How many have passed to the sound of his music? It's been said that a man should not be forced to live up to his art. Benny Carter is one of the rare instances when we wonder whether the great art that a man has created can live up to him.

What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul.

Duke Ellington is my choice for many reasons. Nobody has written so many great pieces of music, which are everlasting, and he has made them available to the world through his orchestrations of his work in a unique way. Lastly, he was himself a fine pianist. He covers the entire musical spectrum with his genius.

Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitar player in the world... a guy who mastered that instrument. It was talking when he played. And when he did a solo, he made the guitar cry - or made it sound like it was coming from the devil's amplifier.

This is just too awful. Such an amazing talent [like George Michael] gone too soon. Wham was part of the soundtrack to my teenage years.

There's a unique component of music that is different from, the written pamphlet or a speech. There's something, when you get the right combination of rhythm, melody and the right lyrical couplet, that feels like truth in the reptilian brain. There's something hardwired in our D.N.A.. And when you get a large group of people singing together in solidarity, it's something that, in my experience, and I've played countless demonstrations and protests through the years, it's something that can really help a struggle.

I think, in my life and in my experience, teens have stress, and everybody's stress is unique, and everybody's frame of reference is different

Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.

Those with prodigious skill in music are better suited for all things.

You can't teach it [jazz singing]. There's nobody who can teach you how to sing jazz. Either you know how to sing jazz, or you don't.

I bid the chords sweet music make, And all must follow in my wake.

Ray Toro is a very eccentric, crazy genius type guy. I think he's a genius. He just got this thing at the VMA. The way he played, it makes you go 'Jesus!' He's really sweet, really kind of lovable. He's like a cartoon character.

I do but sing because I must; and pipe but as the linnets sing.

I couldn't live without the genius of Stephen Sondheim, be it not just West Side Story,but Follies,Company,Sweeney Todd,Passion.You can go on and on.

To many people Michael Jackson seems an elusive personality, but to those who work with him, he is not. This talented artist is a sensitive man, warm, funny, and full of insight. Michael's book 'Moonwalk', provides a startling glimpse of the artist at work and the artist in reflection.

What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar". You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar.

[Louis Armstrong] was the only musician who ever lived, who can't be replaced by someone.

I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.

Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly, or touched quite so many people with their talent. A strong spirit transcends rules,' Prince once said - and nobody's spirit was stronger, bolder, or more creative. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his band, and all who loved him.

A very few musicians passed across all decades. In terms of trumpet playing, Louis Armstrong does it of course but Sweets [Edison] is right up there too. He is unique, in every sense of the term.