Quotes from Lee Konitz

Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.

I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.

That's kind of my goal: to build a new row of meaningful tones.