Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden!
Toots Thielemans

What I try to impart to a musician is to really try to practice the instrument in a really sincere way. Learn as much about music as you possibly can. Learn composition. Study to try to create compositions of your own and put your own personal touch on your music.
Roscoe Mitchell

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'
Wynton Marsalis

When I did it, I was a starving musician in London in a basement flat, but a simple tune with the right singer or the right situation can become very well liked and accepted. I'm only too pleased to say it happened with that one.
Mick Ralphs

When I left the band I said Look, I am ready to move on. I was interested in playing with some of the other people that I had bee a studio musician with.
John Sebastian

When I was 19, I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.
Billy Joel

When I was a young musician, the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory.
Billy Joel

When I'm dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance.
Freddie Mercury

When one puts up a building one makes an elaborate scaffold to get everything into its proper place. But when one takes the scaffold down, the building must stand by itself with no trace of the means by which it was erected. That is how a musician should work.
Andres Segovia

Who told you I was a musician?
Leon Redbone

Why do you judge me as a musician, John? All I'm interested in is making money.
Glenn Miller

Yes, I'm a musician. I also like to play with others, sometimes more, sometimes less.
Klaus Schulze

You can never learn it all and I hope to continue my growth as a person and a musician.
Lita Ford

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them.
Etta James

You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works.
Van Morrison

You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here's this vital energy, and that element doesn't even know it exists!
Joseph Jarman

You know, I am just a musician and I have no idea these days what good and bad is in terms of labels.
Billy Sherwood

You know, it's funny... when you're making money, people don't think you're playing jazz. Now when you're not making money, people think that you're a good jazz musician.
Pete Fountain