Lee Konitz

“I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.”

“I love Indian music very much, but I haven't studied that specifically.”

“A lot of bands were doing remotes from ballrooms around the country.”

“Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.”

“Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.”

“I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.”

“Names and theoretical things don't occur to me. If they do, I'm not doing my real playing mode.”

“Sound is the first thing that we tune into.”

“I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.”

“A first love always occupies a special place.”

“I wish that person outside would stop coughing.”

“After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.”

“I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.”

“It's very demanding to make up your own music.”

“I listen to classical music very much. There's a lot of jazz that I don't enjoy listening to.”

“You just keep playing. If someone special comes along and organizes it in a new way, then you'll have another approach and everybody will jump on it to try to learn.”

“I always felt as a horn player, a jam session wasn't satisfying enough for me. I should have been a rhythm section player, actually.”

“It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.”

“We all learn from each other, and I never really hung out with guys in that way, so I missed out.”

“Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.”