Stan Getz

“I appreciate men like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins very much.”

“If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.”

“We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it's beautiful, not necessarily commercial.”

“As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.”

“My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often - in fact, mostly - at the expense of everything else in my life.”

“I came from an era when we didn't use electronic instruments. The bass wasn't even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.”

“You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.”

“Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.”

“I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.”

“The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.”

“Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.”

“A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.”

“My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.”

“You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.”