Quotes About Freedom

When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel not the way others think you should feel.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life.

Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.

Making music should not be left to the professionals.

Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket.

Close your eyes and let music set you free.

Jazz is letting everybody do his or her thing with the music.

There are a lot of people in this world that listen to wide ranges of music and there should never be a CERTAIN type of music that any artist should be confined to, in my opinion.

Rock 'n' Roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

If you possess something but you can't give it away, then you don't possess it... it possesses you.

Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre.

Sometimes, music is like poop. It just has to come out.

The idea of having to conform to someone else's ideal is unacceptable. I'm gonna be me. And if I can't be me, then I'd rather not do it.

It's my dream to make music that can make people feel like they're flying

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.'

Jazz is about being in the moment.

A lot of the time it feels like… music is some sort of excuse to be a human. It's kind of like people need that excuse to go and put their arms in the air and sing their hearts out.

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.