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All Ornette Coleman Quotes
Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer.'
Ornette Coleman
62% of people like this quote
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!'
Ornette Coleman
59% of people like this quote
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.
Ornette Coleman
59% of people like this quote
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.
Ornette Coleman
56% of people like this quote
To me, human existence exists on a multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional level, not just having to be identified with what you do and what you say.
Ornette Coleman
56% of people like this quote
It seems to me that in the western world, culture has something to do with appearance. A person that's out creating good stuff has got to appreciate someone when they take the time to have an appearance that goes with what they're doing.
Ornette Coleman
56% of people like this quote
Most of my relationships have been like that - with record companies. I've never had a legitimate business relationship with a company. I've always had a personal relationship with someone in the company.
Ornette Coleman
56% of people like this quote
I'm having this conversation with you now. I'm talking, but I'm thinking, feeling, smelling, and moving. Yet I'm concentrating on what you're saying. So that means there's more things going on in the body than just the present thing that the person's got you doing.
Ornette Coleman
55% of people like this quote
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.
Ornette Coleman
54% of people like this quote
It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.
Ornette Coleman
53% of people like this quote
It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.
Ornette Coleman
53% of people like this quote
No one has to learn to spell to talk, right? You see a little kid holding a conversation with an adult. He probably doesn't know the words he's saying, but he knows where to fit them to make what he's thinking logical to what you're saying.
Ornette Coleman
53% of people like this quote
That's what I was trying to say when we were talking about sound. I think that every person, whether they play music or don't play music, has a sound - their own sound, that thing that you're talking about.
Ornette Coleman
53% of people like this quote
I asked my mother could I have an instrument. She said, 'Well if you go out and save your money.' So I went and got - I made me a shine box. I went out and started shining shoes, and I'd bring whatever I made.
Ornette Coleman
52% of people like this quote
I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.
Ornette Coleman
52% of people like this quote
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