musicians-from-pittsburgh

"You can’t just take kids off the streets, put them in a hall, and expect them to know how to react.... During my first season, while I was conducting a youth concert, one kid went through a plate glass window and two bathrooms were totally destroyed...”"

"I spent a lot of time teaching myself theory and harmony so I could be free to express myself on the instrument. I learned what relatives and substitutes could be played against a root of a chord, like E minor related to G, and so forth. I've also gathered all this knowledge because for ten years all I've done is play jazz, every day."

"You are everything I've waited for."

"Just another taste of pleasure."

"I'm a slave to my indifference."

"I suppose I should hope that it turns out fine."

"I can't wait for you."

"I can only help myself."

"I was lost and out of touch, with the way you made me feel."

"You can run, I dont think that you can hide."

"She waits until her brokenness can break her."

"I hope that I can be what you deserve."

"Waiting on another chance to make it right."

"I'm too involved in making plans for my soul."

"I saw the whole world from your eyes, at least the glimpse you let me see. And what a glimpse you let me see."

"I just want to be not what I am today. I just want to be better than my friends might say. I just want a small part in your passion play."

"Memories fade into dust."

"Ready or not, I'm not what you wanted, I'm what you got."

"I won't measure love from the tears that drip from your face."

"To this day I still regret how I made you go away."

"A lifetime here with you will seem to short."

"You're the bad one from the day you were born."

"I hope the days get longer and make this love grow stronger."

"Today I would choose Stephen Foster as an underrated composer. His music has been played so often that it is easy to forget how powerful, poignant and uniquely American it is."

"Sadly I roam, Still longing for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home."

"All the world is sad and dreary, Everywhere I roam."

"The day goes by like a shadow o’er the heart, With sorrow where all was delight; The time has come when the darkies have to part: Then my old Kentucky home, good night!"

"All up and down the whole creation, Sadly I roam, Still longing for the old plantation, And for the old folks at home."

"Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me, Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee; Sounds of the rude world heard in the day, Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away."

"The head must bow, and the back will have to bend, Wherever the darkey may go; A few more days, and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow. A few more days for to tote the weary load,— No matter, 't will never be light; A few more days till we totter on the road:— Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"

"Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, Gone from the earth to a better land I know, I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe.""

"Oh I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee, I'm going to Louisiana, my true love for to see It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry The sun so hot I froze to death; Susanna, don't you cry. Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me For I come from Alabama, With my banjo on my knee."

"[S]o go on and play, and if you make a mistake, make it loud so you won't make it next time."

"[On a live performance] If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing."

"If Art Blakey's old-fashioned, I'm white."

"I love every "lib" movement there is, because after the "lib" the things that were always a mystique become understandable and boring, and then nobody has to feel left out if they're not part of what is happening. For instance, single people looking for husbands and wives used to feel left out because the image marriage had in the old days was so wonderful. w:Jane Wyatt and Robert Young. w:Nick and Nora Charles, Ethel and Fred Mertz, Dagwood and Blondie."

"I don't see anything wrong with being alone, it feels great to me. People make a big thing about personal love. It doesn't have to be such a big thing. The same for living - people make a big thing about that too. But personal living and personal loving are the two things the Eastern-type wise men don't think about."

"We went to see Dr No [first James Bond film, 1962] at Fort-Second Street. It's a fantastic movie, so cool. We walked outside and somebody threw a cherry bomb right in front of us, in this big crowd. And there was blood. I saw blood on people and all over. I felt like I was bleeding all over. I saw in the paper last week that there are more people throwing them - it's just part of the scene - and hurting people. My show in Paris is to be called Death in America. I'll show the Electric-chair pictures and the Dogs in Birmingham and car wrecks and some suicide pictures."

"During the 60's, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. That's what more or less has happened to me. I don't really know if I was ever capable of love, but after the '60's I never thought in terms of "love" again."

"At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone. The moment I decided I'd rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their problems, everybody I'd never even seen before in my life started running after me to tell me things I'd just decided I didn't think it was a good idea to hear about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that's when I got what you might call a "following." As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. I've found that to be absolutely axiomatic."

"If an artist can't do anymore, then he should just quit; and an artist ought to be able to change his style without feeling bad. I heard that Lichtenstein said he might not be painting comic strips a year of two from now [1963]. I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's going to happen; that's going to be the whole new scene."

":: In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes."

"It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.""

"I can never get over when you're on the beach how beautiful the sand looks and the water washes it away and straightens it up and the trees and the grass all look great. I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own."

"It's hard to be creative and it's also hard not to think what you do is creative or hard not to be called creative because everybody is always talking about that and individuality. Everybody's always creative. And it is so funny when you say things aren't, like the shoe I would draw for an advertisement was called a 'creation', but the drawing of it was not.. .There are millions of actors. They're all pretty good. And how many painters are there? Millions of painters and all pretty good. How can you say one style is better then another. You ought to be able to be an Abstract-expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you're given up something."

"I really do live for the future, because when I'm eating a box of candy, I can't wait to taste the last piece. I don't even taste any of the other pieces, I just want to finish and throw the box away and not have to have it on my mind any more. I would rather either have it now or know I'll never have it so I don't have to think about it. That's why some days I wish I were very very old-looking so I wouldn't have to think about getting old-looking."

"Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job."

"Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, "So what." That's one of my favorite things to say. "So what." "My mother didn't love me." So what. "My husband won't ball me." So what. "I'm a success but I'm still alone." So what. I don't know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget."

"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

"If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface; of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.. .I see everything that way, the surface of things, a kind of mental Braille. I just pass my hands over the surface of things. [1973]"