Paul Smoker Quotes

"I use a lot of double-tonguing [using the tongue to control airflow]; that allows me to play as fast as if I was slurring, but with clean articulation on every note." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"There was a time, in my early 20s, when I picked up the trumpet and said, ‘I've got to change what I'm doing.' I wasn't putting enough air through the horn. The tone I wanted was bigger than what I had. I was out of control." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Bill Crow Quotes

"My reading was good enough to play big-band charts, but I ran into trouble with Claude (Thornhill)’s theme song “Snowfall,” which had a repeating bass line in D-flat that was very difficult for me to finger using my self-taught technique. I spent one morning figuring out an alternate fingering, and that started me on the way to learning a better use of the fingerboard." - Bill Crow

source: Interview with Jazz Profiles (January 17, 2009)

Cecil Taylor Quotes

"In short, [Coltrane's] tone is beautiful because it is functional. In other words, it is always involved in saying something. You can't separate the means that a man uses to say something from what he ultimately says. Technique is not separated from its content in a great artist." - Cecil Taylor

source: Cole, John Coltrane, p.193

Charlie Watts Quotes

"You need better technique than I have to play jazz, but what you have to do is the same thing, isn't it?" - Charlie Watts

Kenny G Quotes

"Just because people play songs with great technique doesn't mean the records are better." - Kenny G

Dave Brubeck Quotes

"And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into." - Dave Brubeck