Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe. "

Related Quotes:

" I lost my mother when I was 7 and they put her in a mental hospital. My brother and I watched her being taken away in a strait jacket. That's something you never forget. And my stepmother was like in the movie 'Precious.' I couldn't handle it. So I said to myself, 'I don't have a mother. I don't need one. I'm going to let music be my mother.' "

" Unfortunately, America doesn't have a minister of culture, and I don't understand why. It's really bad for young people. "

" I think the attraction of 'American Idol' is about the basic human nature attitude that is, 'We can put you up there. But we can take you down.' "

" Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go. "

" I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.' "

" All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls. "

" I didn't understand key signatures or anything, you know. I'd say silly things at the top of a trumpet part like, 'Note, when you play B naturals, make the B naturals a half step lower because they sound funny if they're B naturals.' And some guy said: 'Idiot, just put a flat on the third line and it's a key signature, you know?' "

" I travel like a maniac. I travel more than anyone I know. I love learning the languages. "

" Everybody has their idiosyncrasies. "

" I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs. "

" My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade. "

" I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day. "

" If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture. "

" After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument. "

" I like all music. The only music I don't like is bad music. "

" I never cared about money or fame, and I don't care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows. "

" We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too. "

Black And White

" Sidney Poitier and Sidney Lumet were instrumental in helping me get started as the first black composer to get name credit for movie scores. "

" I don't ever want to grow up. That's boring. "

" Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they're connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You've got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand. "

" Cherish your mistakes, and you won't keep making them over and over again. It's the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, and they'll put some wealth in you. "

" My grandmother had this high-tech security system - a rusty nail she used to lock the door. "

" I hope that on my tombstone it says 'Born 1933, died 2043.' I hope that's my legacy. "

" Without the Fender bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything. "

" I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins. "

" I've never been bored in my life, man. I've never been bored or lonely. Are you kidding? No way! I'm an orchestrator, a musician, a producer. I love everything. I've studied languages from Farsi to Greek to French, Swedish, Russian... How can you get bored? "

" My son is a hip-hop producer. "

" I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens. "

" I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America. "

" Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That's the soul of a country. "