Stan Getz Quotes

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

Stan Getz

#2. 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.

Stan Getz

#3. I cannot play a lie. I have to believe in what I play or it won't come out.

Stan Getz

#4. 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.

Stan Getz

#5. 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.

Stan Getz

#6. I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

Stan Getz

#7. When I'm alcohol-free now and even to see the world around me, I appreciate it, but I never truly enjoy too much of it maybe because I feel like I'm a working musician. There are some joyous moments, but I will not think a joyous moment.

Stan Getz

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

Stan Getz

#9. 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.

Stan Getz

#10. 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.

Stan Getz

#11. Hearing myself so much all the time, I don't think I sound that special all the time because it's me.

Stan Getz

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

Stan Getz

#13. Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.

Stan Getz

#14. I had a 10-year heroin habit and kicked that. Then I became an alcoholic. I drank two fifth's a day.

Stan Getz

#15. You know, when I'm playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I'm davening, I'm really telling it to the Wall.

Stan Getz

#16. Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

Stan Getz

#17. I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is in thinking of what to play.

Stan Getz

#18. The value of jazz still has to be clarified. People involve themselves with its superficialities without digging for its soul.

Stan Getz

#19. I appreciate men like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins very much.

Stan Getz

#20. We recorded to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records.

Stan Getz

#21. You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

Stan Getz

#22. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I don't do anything anymore, but those things, those things take away ... You're a different personality completely when you take those. For those who are really chemically dependent on anything, it's not you.

Stan Getz

#23. I've done some dastardly things but what can I do except make amends and apologize?

Stan Getz

#24. There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. they are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence.

Stan Getz

#25. 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.

Stan Getz

#26. I practiced saxophone eight hours a day for the first two years I played.

Stan Getz

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

Stan Getz

#28. People think that I play effortlessly. I remember doing a record date with Bill Evans and afterwards he said to me, you make it sound so easy but when I get right up next to you you're working hard and making it sound easy!

Stan Getz