Don Ellis Quotations

I got bored with the old way - it came too easy. I worked until I could play and chord changes at any tempo in any key, and then said 'What else is there?' Now I'm finding out.

It is much easier to be accepted if you play like everyone else, and you will get more jobs. It depends on where your values lie.

To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel - not the way others think you should feel.

It is my belief that there is a tendency among the so-called 'modern' or 'hip' jazz musicians to consider styles other that their own, 'corny', and it is my contention that in actuality it is these musicians who are producing that which in future years perceptive critics will deem 'corny'.

I expect the audience to come up to my level.

I expect the audience to come up to my level. I am not interested in compromising my music to make it palatable to an assumed sub-standard mass.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

To be a true artist you have to play the way you feel not the way others think you should feel.

Why should a craftsman not make use of all his tools if they will promote a greater communication and expressiveness? This is not to deny that beautiful things can be fashioned out of very modest means, but what possible objection can there be towards an artist trying to be more resourceful?

On those long notes behind the trumpet solo, if anyone lets his mind wander for a minute he is dead.

As we see in folk music quite often, emotion transforms what might otherwise be considered 'corny' (i.e. trite, banal, sentimental) music into valid, moving art.

It was made into a situation when the governor acted like a horse's backside. The governor didn't reflect the attitude of the Georgia Tech football team at all.

Because when we are right there is not a band in the world that can touch us!

He ran into me. He got knocked down into the ground. I didn't.

The truth in the matter lies in the fact that anything repeated too long without variation tends to become boring.