“First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.”
“Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.”
“You never master the instrument. You always just strive to get better.”
“Music should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It’s easy to rediscover part of yourself, but through art you can be shown part of yourself you never knew existed. That’s the real mission of art.”
“I think some young people want a deeper experience. Some people just wanna be hit over the head and, you know, if then they [get] hit hard enough maybe they’ll feel something. You know? But some people want to get inside of something and discover, maybe, more richness. And I think it will always be the same; they’re not going to be the great percentage of the people. A great percentage of the people don’t want a challenge. They want something to be done to them – they don’t want to participate. But there’ll always be maybe 15% maybe, 15%, that desire something more, and they’ll search it out - and maybe that’s where art is, I think.”
“Truth and beauty is all that matters. Truth and beauty.”
“Jazz is a mental attitude rather than a style.”
“As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time.”
“I believe in things that are developed through hard work. I always like people who have developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think what they arrive at is usually a much deeper and more beautiful thing than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning. I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to.”
“Intuition has to lead knowledge, but it can’t be out there alone.”
“Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.”
“You can’t explain Jazz to anyone without losing the experience because it’s feeling, not words.”
“It just doesn’t attract me. I’m of a certain period, a certain evolution. I hear music differently. I mean, for me, comparing electric bass to acoustic bass is sacrilege."
“When you play music you discover a part of yourself that you never knew existed.”
“Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.”
“I like [Thelonious Monk] a lot. What comes from Monk, some others absorbed it, too. He’s such a strong and beautiful individual that imitating him is insulting him, and it’s a mistake to do so. You give up your own personality when you imitate him-or anybody else for that matter.”
“Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can’t explain it. They really can’t translate feeling because they’re not part of it. That’s why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.“
"Bach changed my hand approach to playing the piano. I used to use a lot of finger technique when I was younger, and I changed over to a weight technique. Actually if you play Bach and all the voices sing at all, and sustain the way the should, you can’t really play it with the wrong approach. It’s going to straighten you out in a hurry if you have a concept of what it should sound like."
“If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.”
"It is true of any subject that the person that succeeds in anything has the realistic viewpoint (of difficulty) at the beginning and knowing that the problem is large and that you have to take it a step at a time, you have to enjoy this step-by-step learning procedure."
"I don’t try to be hard to understand, I really don’t want to be obscure. But I do want to try to say something that goes just a bit deeper than the everyday."
“It’s better to practice one song for 24 hours than play 24 tunes in one hour.”
"Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording."
"It’s hard for people to recognize individuals on an electric piano. Because it is an electric instrument, it’s hard for a personality to come through."
“And ultimately, I came to the conclusion that all I must do is take care of the music, even if I do it in a closet. And if I really do that, somebody’s going to come and open the door of the closet and say, ‘Hey, we’re looking for you.”
"I’m a rather simple person with a limited talent and perhaps a limited perspective."
(번외)
“when he recorded the solo sessions, Bill Evans was somewhat miserable. He wanted to record cause he needed the money for heroin, but he was in a bad shape during the takes. Orrin Keepnews, the producer, was less than impressed with what he saw as a flimsy approach and refused to release. It was only after the death in 1980, going through the archive of Evans, that he came over them again and discovered what emotions are captured in this perhaps most deep-felt playing by Bill Evans ever recorded.”
“Miles (Davis) loved Bill (Evans) so much he said he used to call Bill up and tell him to put the phone on top of the piano and play and Miles would be on the other end, that’s how much he admired Bill’s playing.”(quote는 아니지만 귀여워서 끼워넣어봄ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ)
“Bill left the band in 1958 and went down to Louisiana to live with his brother. Then he came back after a while and formed his own group. After a while he got Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums and he became very popular with that group, winning a number of Grammy Awards. He was a great little pianist, but I don’t think he ever sounded as good after that as he did when he played with me.” (Miles Davis가 한 말인데 이것도 넘 귀여워서 집어넣음ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ)
"When Bill Evans - we sometimes called him Moe - first got with the band, he was so quiet, man. One day, just to see what he could do, I told him “Bill, you know what you have to do, don’t you, to be in this band?”
He looked at me all puzzled and shit and shook his head and said “No Miles, what do I have to do?”
I said “Bill, now you know we all brothers and shit and everybody’s in this thing together and so what I came up with for you is that you got to make it with everybody, you know what I mean? You got to fuck the band.” Now, I was kidding, but Bill was real serious, like Trane. He thought about if for about fifteen minutes and then just came back and told me, “Miles, I thought about what you said and I just can’t do it, I just can’t do that. I’d like to please everyone and make everyone happy here, but I just can’t do that.” I looked at him and smiled and said. “My man!” and then he knew I was teasing." 귀여웤ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
“People think that I play effortlessly. I remember doing a record date with Bill Evans and afterwards he said to me, you make it sound so easy but when I get right up next to you you’re working hard and making it sound easy!” Stan Getz (이것도 웃김ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ)
