Art Pepper Quotes

"If I have a drink, she [Art's wife, Laurie Pepper] can tell immediately, She'll be sitting at a table or something ... this happened just recently in this club; she was sitting with these friends of mine, I started playing a tune, and all of a sudden she turned round, looked at me, looked back at them and said: "Art's been drinking." And they didn't hear anything different at all than the first set. I played a couple of notes, and she knew. She went up to the bar, asked for the tab, and she saw that I'd had two drinks." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"What has been America's most nurturing contribution to the culture of this planet so far? Many would say jazz. I, who love jazz, will say this instead: Alcoholics Anonymous." - Kurt Vonnegut

source: War Preparers' Anonymous, Essay in The Nation (January 7, 1984)

Joe Pass Quotes

"It [drinking] all started when I split from home. I got the opportunity to go on the road and I went off with groups and trios. And I got introduced to drinking and all that. I was rebelling really and although I wasn't influenced by knowing that other jazz players were onto it, there was a point where there was a definite identifying with that, because it was part of the whole scene. It's just part of the environment and still is; but that doesn't mean that you have got to get caught up in it. But I thought that was the way to go, and I went from one thing to another and that's how I got started. I got heavily involved and people were saying, 'You'd better cool it, you'd better stop.' But I mean - I couldn't hear anything they said. Everybody, people close to me, my family; I didn't hear them; you never do." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Johnny St. Cyr Quotes

"A working man have the power to play hot, whiskey or no whiskey." - Johnny St. Cyr

source: 'Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It' (Nat Shapiro, First published 1966)

Pepper Adams Quotes

"I'm all in favor of getting grants for musicians. Or any other good brand of Scotch." - Pepper Adams

Jimmy McPartland Quotes

"You could get all you wanted to drink but nothing to eat. Just the same, it was better than nothing at all." - Jimmy McPartland

Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

"I was blessed that I got married early and had a good wife. That sort of kept me straight. Probably I would have been like Charlie Parker, you know, involved in drugs or alcohol or something like that if I hadn't had this stability." - Dizzy Gillespie

Lawrence Brown Quotes

"I never smoked, drank, or gambled, but I didn't keep myself away from those who did. The bar is still the main place where I meet my friends. I have a Coke and buy them a whiskey. When marijuana became popular in the West around 1932, I used to see them having a ball, but it never attracted me. I remember going to one party with a quart of milk. They drank their liquor and smoked their weed, and I drank my milk."

Louis Armstrong Quotes

"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." - Louis Armstrong

Freddie Hubbard Quotes

"I quit drinking, so I can think clear. When you have chop trouble, drinking doesn't help the healing process." - Freddie Hubbard

Sonny Rollins Quotes

"I have seen great jazz musicians die obscure and drinking themselves to death and not really being able to get any work and working in small, funky jazz clubs." - Sonny Rollins