"Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life."
Read quote
65 likes
Quote collection
Sonny Rollins quotes (page 1 of 3)
48 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I want to be connecting with the subconscious, if I can call it that, because there are not to many words to describe the real deep inner part of a human beingI want to be at that place where everything is blotted out and where creativity happens, and to get there I practice, you know I'm a prolific practicer, I still practice every dayYou have to have the skills, then you want to not think when you're playing, that's when you let whatever deep level of creativity, spirituality, I mean, you know these words are so inadequate these days but you want to get to this place where they exist."
Read quote
63 likes
"I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz."
Read quote
60 likes
"I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with."
Read quote
51 likes
"Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz."
Read quote
38 likes
"I'm not supposed to be playing, the music is supposed to be playing me. I'm just supposed to be standing there with the horn, moving my fingers. The music is supposed to be coming through me; that's when it's really happening."
Read quote
33 likes
"No one is original. Everyone is derivative."
Read quote
25 likes
"The thing is this: When I play, what I try to do is to reach my subconscious level. I don't want to overtly think about anything, because you can't think and play at the same time - believe me, I've tried it (laughs)."
Read quote
23 likes
"I think music should be judged on what it is. It should be very high and above everything else. It is a beautiful way of bringing people together, a little bit of an oasis in this messed-up world."
Read quote
23 likes
"How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity."
Read quote
22 likes
"Jazz never ends... it just continues."
Read quote
21 likes
"I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music."
Read quote
19 likes
"I miss playing with Miles. I did play with him a little while before he left the planet, but even at that time I longed to maybe do some things together."
Read quote
17 likes
"...this is my dilemma. I'm a guy who makes things up as I go along, so nothing is ever finished - there are so many layers. So when you solo, yeah, you might get into one thing, but then, hey, everything has implications! You can hear the next level. And that's how I feel about improvising - there's always another level."
Read quote
16 likes
"Improvisation is really not so much remembering things. And this is what I do when I play. I forget things. When I go on the stage, I want my mind to be a blank, so that I can - things can come into me without my knowing where they came from."
Read quote
16 likes
"It's all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again."
Read quote
15 likes
"I'll know when I find the ultimate sound."
Read quote
14 likes
"I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress...so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair."
Read quote
14 likes
"One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really."
Read quote
12 likes
"I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves."
Read quote
12 likes