Sonny Rollins Quotes

Quotes about:

• Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

  Sonny Rollins

  Life, Music, Nature

  67 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Real

  66 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Moving, Jazz

  "Sonny Rollins: 'You Can't Think And Play At The Same Time'". "All Things Considered" with Arun Rath, www.npr.org. May 3, 2014.

  36 Copy quote

• Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Jazz And Life, Type

  40 Copy quote

• No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Derivatives, Jazz

  28 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Beautiful, Thinking, Oasis

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Play, Knowing, Mind

  Source: www.pbs.org

  18 Copy quote

• Jazz never ends... it just continues.

  Sonny Rollins

  Jazz, Ends

  23 Copy quote

• Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Spiritual, Jazz

  13 Copy quote

• 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).

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Believe, Thinking

  25 Copy quote

• We have to make ourselves as perfect as we can.

  Sonny Rollins

  Perfect

  "Pacific Aggression with Shaun Scott". Interview with Jake Uitti, www.themonarchreview.org. August 19, 2013.

  10 Copy quote

• I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Essence, Jazz Improvisation

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Progress, Despair

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  America, People, Humanity

  1958 Statement on sleeve of Freedom Suite.

  25 Copy quote

• I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play.

  Sonny Rollins

  Play, Jazz, Obligation

  Source: www.pbs.org

  5 Copy quote

• I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.

  Sonny Rollins

  Sound, Knows, Ultimate

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Flower, Water, Needs

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Play, Missing, Together

  19 Copy quote

• ...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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Guy, Next Level, Hey

  18 Copy quote

• I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Want, Legends

  11 Copy quote

• What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years.

  Sonny Rollins

  Years, Civilization, Next

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Dedication, Important

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Sonny Rollins

  Musician, Way, Facts

  14 Copy quote

• But if I didn't have to make money, I would still play my horn.

  Sonny Rollins

  Play, Horny, Making Money

  13 Copy quote

• I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That's what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.

  Sonny Rollins

  Suicide, Thinking, Using Resources

  9 Copy quote

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin