Great Throughts Treasury

"Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be better. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying."

"What we play is life."

"A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original."

"At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the "mis-de" and you just got meaner and meaner.."

"Bebop is Chinese music."

"All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song."

"Hot can be cool, and cool can be hot, and each can be both. But hot or cool, man, jazz is jazz."

"I don?t need words ? it?s all in the phrasing."

"I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don't treat me right ? shame on you!"

"I don't let my mouth say nothin' my head can't stand."

"I never tried to prove nothing, just wanted to give a good show. My life has always been my music, it's always come first, but the music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people."

"If they act to hip, you know they can?t play shit!"

"If it hadn't been for Jazz, there wouldn't be no rock and roll."

"I?m a spade, you?re an ofay. Let?s play."

"I think we've all had enough of Coltrane saxophonists. There's a case of someone ruining a generation of saxophonists, as Louis Armstrong may have ruined a generation of trumpeters."

"If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out."

"If I don?t practice for a day, I know it. If I don?t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don?t practice for three days, the public knows it."

"In between sets or in intermissions during concerts, Mr. Armstrong and some of the younger musicians would head out the back entrance for some marijuana cigarettes. While the others enjoyed some fine Mexican product, Mr. Armstrong would bring out his "New Orleans Golden Leaf". The others were not impressed. This went on for some time but after a while of Mr. Armstrong smoking the others stuff with them they, in a bantering manner, asked him: -"What ever happened to your New Orleans Golden Leaf"?. To this Mr. Armstrong replied: -"Shit son, that would be like bringing a hamburger to a banquet"."

"If you still have to ask, shame on you."

"It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics... dope and all of that crap. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend."

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."

"Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it."

"Jazz is what I play for a living."

"Making money ain?t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat and when you die you?re just as graveyard dead as he is."

"Man, all music is folk music. You ain?t never heard no horse sing a song, have you?"

"Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them."

"My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn."

"Never play a thing the same way twice."

"Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of like half-fast."

"The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn."

"Some of you young folks been saying to me, "Hey Pops, what you mean 'What a wonderful world'? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either." Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance.Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be better. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying."

"The Bright Blessed Day, the Dark Sacred Night"

"The music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people."

"The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago."

"The Pope was such a fine little fella, you know."

"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them."

"The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell."

"To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!"

"We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself."

"When I go to the Gate, I'll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we'll play 'Sleepy Time Down South' and 'Hello, Dolly!.' Then he can blow a couple that he's been playing up there all the time."

"When I was young and very green, I wrote that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it for you. I'll give you fifty dollars. I didn't know nothing about papers, and business, and I sold it outright."

"When you?re dead, you?re done."

"You blows who you is."

"There?s only two ways to sum up music; either it?s good or it?s bad. If it?s good you don?t mess about it, you just enjoy it."

"There is two kinds of music the good and bad. I play the good kind."

"There's some folks, that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."

"There is no such thing as 'on the way out' as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you're in the business because you're breathing."

"You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means."

"You see, pops, that's the kind of talk that's ruining the music. Everyone's trying to do something new, no one trying to learn the fundamentals first. All them young cats playing their wierd chords. And what happens? No one's working."