Coleman Hawkins Quotations

Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor

You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.

If you don't make mistakes you are not really trying.

I made the tenor sax - there's nobody plays like me and I don't play like anybody else

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play

Some of my biggest moments have been in jam sessions, but I don't want to talk about them. There were always other people involved.

There's no such thing as bop music, but there's such a thing as progress.

I don't think about music as being new or modern. I just play.

If they think they are doing something new, they ought to do what I do every day - spend at least two hours every day listening to Johann Sebastian Bach and, man, it's all there. If they want to improvise around a theme,which is the essence of jazz, they should learn from the master. He never wastes a note, and he knows where every note is going and when to bring it back. Some of these cats go way out and forget where they began or what they started to do. Bach will clear it up for them.

"If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying."