I'm not a clotheshorse or a big shoes guy.
The jazz musician's function is to feel.
The hippest thing you can do is not play at all. Just listen.
You could make your fingers reproduce exactly what you felt, if you really worked at it. I achieved it, not only spending a lot of time at the keyboard but finding ways I could make my fingers reproduce my deepest feelings. It meant, when you hit a note with a finger, you sank into that note all the way to the bottom of the keyboard until it went pow! Right?
It's not instant composing; it's not following any kind of a formula. All you do is hear music in your head and reproduce it.
Dave Frank is one of the few people that can REALLY play!
An intimate friend and a hated enemy have always been indispensable requirements for my emotional life; I have always been able to create them anew, and not infrequently my childish ideal has been so closely approached that friend and enemy coincided in the same person.
Lay your life down. Your heartbeats cannot be hoarded. Your reservoir of breaths is draining away. You have hands, blister them while you can. You have bones, make them strain - they can carry nothing in the grave. You have lungs, let them spill with laughter.
The test of a great golfer is his ability to recover from a bad start.
Never let anyone define you. You are the only person who defines you. No one can speak for you. Only you speak for you. You are your only voice.