Sonny Rollins Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don't think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact.”

“You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.”

“I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?”

“Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.”

“There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.”

“Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there.”

“I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.”