Ornette Coleman Musician Quotations

Actually, when I was in elementary school, I saw a saxophone. A band came to my school, and I saw this guy get up and play this solo. And I said, 'Oh man, what is that! That must be fantastic!'

It just makes that person feel that what his work is is going to be more valid. But who wants to see a guy standing in front, looking like a bum, doing something that a bums don't do? This don't make sense.

I've had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I've had lots of guys call me up. I've gotten two or three commissions to write things. I've written lots of movie scores.

Actually, I have another record I made with them in 1976, but I've had such a bad experience with record companies, because I keep my head so much in music and not in business.

I remember once, we got an interview, and he said, 'Dad, these people are writing about me like I'm an adult. Don't they know I'm a kid?' I have never tried to encourage him to get a music image like other musicians have.

I've been playing with Blackwell over 20 years. We used to play when I first went to Los Angeles. Blackwell plays the drums as if he's playing a wind instrument. Actually, he sounds more like a talking drum.

I don't really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I'd like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.

Music is the say way. If you desire to play it or write it, then you have to get more information. But the end result is that you play music.

So, for instance, if you came to me, I'd ask,'Do you want to write? Do you want to improvise? Why do you want to play this instrument? What do you want to do?'

I think that there are lots of people that play music, but, basically, they have other things that are motivating them to play music.

I think those things that are in food are all chemically disastrous when they are placed in the wrong contents where human beings are exposed to it.

Musicians tell me, if what I'm doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

Those things are the results of what people see and hear that you do. But the human beings themselves are living on a multiple level.