Bassists

"It's interesting for me to bring up a girl. You go to the toy store and the female characters there—Cinderella, the lady in Beauty and the Beast—their major task is to find Prince Charming. And I'm like, wait a minute, it's 2005! We've fought so hard to have a say, and not just live through our partners, and yet you're still seeing two-year-old girls with this message pushed at them that the only important thing is to find this amazing dress so that the guy will want you. It's something my mum pointed out to me when I was little—so much [so] that I almost threw up; but, she's right."

"But, but, these are the people that made the Busby Berkeley movies, yeah? So they're not exactly subtle."

"Everyone is bisexual: I’ve always had as many powerful, creative ladies in my life as I have men, and you could probably describe some of those relationships as romantic. I think everyone's bisexual to some degree or another. It's just a question of whether or not you choose to recognise it and embrace it. Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream: You'd be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours."

"I don't like records that are the same from beginning to end, that are too styled and slick. Everything is so designed and airbrushed and Botoxed, it makes us think, 'Oh, everybody's perfect except me. Everything's smooth except me.' But nothing is smooth."

"I am grateful grapefruit."

"It's so amazing when people tell me that … electronic music has not got soul. And they blame the computers. They got the finger pointed at the computers like, "There's no soul here." … You can't blame the computer. If there's not soul in the music, it's because nobody put it there. And it's not the tool's fault."

"She has a weird energy about her as a woman. We were in this town to do a show, and she spread such positive vibes. There were birds singing, and rainbows; we could even see a tornado going on. We could actually see it! … I think that every artist has an aura and persona that develops, and Björk spreads such a positive energy. You can just feel it."

"I … thought about all the artists that I really respected and liked. They were just them. … They're people who always stuck to who they were, and were true and honest about who they were. So, I think that kind of gave me … confidence to just stick at it. Just thinking about people like Björk. You know? [Like] Bob Dylan … artists that truly were strong in themselves."

"Do not fuck with Björk! Björk will beat your ass! … I saw Björk beat this woman's ass one time in this videotape. She was in the Bangkok Airport and she was pushing her luggage cart, and this woman came up and just touched her, and Björk went [roars and hisses]. And it was so scary because you didn't expect it at all, because Björk is so cute. … And Björk called the woman she attacked afterwards to apologize. 'I'm very sorry I tried to pull your eyes up over your head. Somebody must have fed me after midnight.' But Björk wore the best dress ever to the Oscars ever: She wore a swan. And I'm not talking about a dress with white feathers on it. Oh, no. She rocked the whole bird. The beak was up here and shit. And she accessorized it with an egg. What else you gon' wear with your bird? And all of the fashion magazines said she was the worst dressed, but when they say you're the worst, that means you're the best."

"Declare independence Don't let them do that to you ... Start your own currency Make your own stamp Protect your language"

"You have done Good for yourselves Since you left my wet embrace And crawled ashore … My sons and my daughters Ho-oh Your sweat is salty I am why"

"When in doubt, give."

"He offers a handshake, crooked five fingers They form a pattern yet to be matched On the surface simplicity But the darkest pit in me Is pagan poetry"

"I dare you to take me on I dare you to show me your palms I'm so bored of cowards who say they want (love) Then they can't handle love"

"Emotional landscapes They puzzle me The riddle gets solved and you push me up to This state of emergency How beautiful to be State of emergency Is where I want to be"

"You'll be given love You'll be taken care of You'll be given love You have to trust it"

"I'm no fucking Buddhist But this is enlightenment The less room you give me (Happiness) The more space I've got It doesn't scare me at all"

"I want to go on a mountaintop With a radio and good batteries And play a joyous tune And free the Human Race From suffering (saccharine)"

"That sound in tune to you? ... Sounds sharp to me. Sounds like I'm playing sharp all the time. My singing teacher told us you should do that. Maybe I got it from her. She said singers when they grow old have a tendency to go flat. So if you sing sharp as a young person, as you get older and go flat, you'll be in tune. In other words, it's never thought good to be flat. It means you can't get to the tone."

"Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise. My children! You do what you want with your own!"

"Each jazz musician is supposed to be a composer. Whether he is or not, I don't know. I don't listen to that many people. If I did, I probably wouldn't play half as much to satisfy myself. As a youth I read a book by Debussy and he said that as soon as he finished a composition he had to forget it because it got in the way of his doing anything else new and different. And I believed him. I used to work with Tatum, and Tatum knew every tune written, including the classics, and I think it got in the way of his composition, because he wasn't a Bud Powell. He wasn't as melodically inventive as Bud. He was technically flashy and he knew so much music and so much theory that he couldn't come up with anything wrong; it was just exercising his theory."

"In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time."

"Now, whether there is feeling or not depends upon what your environment or your association is or whatever you may have in common with the player. If you feel empathy for his personal outlook, you naturally feel him musically more than some other environmental and musical opposite who is, in a way. beyond you. I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around. But there is no need to compare composers. If you like Beethoven, Bach or Brahms, that's okay. They were all pencil composers. I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer. I thought I was, although no one's mentioned that. I mean critics or musicians. Now, what I'm getting at is that I know I'm a composer. I marvel at composition, at people who are able to take diatonic scales, chromatics, 12-tone scales, or even quarter-tone scales. I admire anyone who can come up with something original. But not originality alone, because there can be originality in stupidity, with no musical description of any emotion or any beauty the man has seen, or any kind of life he has lived."

"My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like an apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

"Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells. Fine jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra run around the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments."

"Each jazz musician when he takes a horn in his hand — trumpet, bass, saxophone, drums — whatever instrument he plays — each soloist, that is, when he begins to ad lib on a given composition with a title and improvise a new creative melody, this man is taking the place of a composer."

"I think my own way. I don't think like you and my music isn't meant just for the patting of feet and going down backs. When and if I feel gay and carefree, I write or play that way. When I feel angry I write or play that way — or when I'm happy, or depressed, even. Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions. If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music, and I would begin to worry about my writing if such a person began to really like it. My music is alive and it's about the living and the dead, about good and evil. It's angry, yet it's real because it knows it's angry."

"Since the white man says he came from the evolution of animals, well, maybe the black man didn't. The white man has made so many errors in the handling of people that maybe he did come from a gorilla or a fish and crawl up on the sand and then into the trees. Of course, evolution doesn't take God into consideration. I don't think people learned to do all the things they do through evolution."

"It seems so hard for some of us to grow up mentally just enough to realize that there are other persons of flesh and bone, just like us, on this great, big earth. And if they don't ever stand still, move, or "swing," they are as right as we are, even if they are as wrong as hell by our standards. Yes, Miles, I am apologizing for my stupid "Blindfold Test." I can do it gladly because I'm learning a little something. No matter how much they try to say that Brubeck doesn't swing — or whatever else they're stewing or whoever else they're brewing — it's factually unimportant. Not because Dave made Time magazine — and a dollar — but mainly because Dave honestly thinks he's swinging. He feels a certain pulse and plays a certain pulse which gives him pleasure and a sense of exaltation because he's sincerely doing something the way he, Dave Brubeck, feels like doing it. And as you said in your story, Miles, "if a guy makes you pat your foot, and if you feel it down your back, etc.," then Dave is the swingingest by your own definition, Miles, because at Newport and elsewhere Dave had the whole house patting its feet and even clapping its hands...."

"Ladies and gentlemen, please don't associate me with any of this. This is not jazz. These are sick people."

"What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music? Had I been born in a different country or had I been born white, I am sure I would have expressed my ideas long ago. Maybe they wouldn't have been as good because when people are born free — I can't imagine it, but I've got a feeling that if it's so easy for you — the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say."

"Although Charles Mingus probably could have performed professionally as a pianist, as evidenced on Mingus Plays Piano and Oh Yeah, he was an absolute monster on the bass, as well an incredibly gifted composer. While his bass skills can be heard on the outstanding 1953 Jazz at Massey Hall live album with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Max Roach, his landmark 1959 Columbia disc, Mingus Ah Um, is hailed by some as his finest recording. It's certainly a great place to start for uninitiated."

"Mingus was always a disaster to have around. I loved him, but he was worse than a child. He didn't know how to clean up behind himself. He could cook, but there would be eggs on the floor and the ceiling. Couldn't find his shoes when he had to go to work, didn't have a white shirt, couldn't write a check. All he could really do was play the bass and write."