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" When you think about musicians who are reading music, my contention has always been the energy that you're using deciphering what the symbol is is taking away from the maximum creative energy that you might have had if you understood that it's but a symbol. "

Cecil Taylor

Creative

Energy

Music

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" I'm saying that people who are enmeshed in situations of subjugation and have to live, have to find ways to project their dignity as human beings - in spite of all the efforts of those around them to degrade them - I'm saying that this music is the manifestation of the dignity in the life that has always been present. "

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" The first record I made, when I listen to it, I understand. I understand perfectly well why certain musicians were unhappy with me. I had to decide: was I unhappy with me? I liked it. If they didn't like it, it was on them. "

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" Fats - very funny man, but every note that he played was like a pearl. "

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" Someone once asked me if I was gay. I said, 'Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity?' I avoid the trap of easy definition. "

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Gay

" I've always tried to be a poet more than anything else. I mean, professional musicians die. "

" I am not afraid of European influences. The point is to use them, as Ellington did, as part of my life as an American Negro. "

" If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process. "

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Cecil Taylor

Piano

How

" They say, 'We will give you money, but we want you to play this or that.' And I always thought, 'If I'm going to do that, I might as well go back and be a dishwasher.' "

" Lena Horne - when she walked onstage, she really was Erzulie. "

" I understand about the relative strengths of people, and I don't think people have to be anything. They can be nothin' if they want to be. "

" The quality of life, values that go down to doin' that, that's the issue. "

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" Find one note on the instrument that pleases you, and then find another note that also pleases you. "

" You must surrender whatever preconceptions you have about music if you're really interested in it. "