Best of luck in future endeavors.

I’ve been playing keys for 30 years now, and I just had my first gig on BASS this last weekend . . . it went down really well, and during my personal rehearsal time, I learned a lot which will apply to my keyboard playing . . . then there’s the drums, but I’m not ready to go there just yet

Keep up the good work!

Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.

Pat your foot and sing the melody in your head, when you play.

Stop playing all those weird notes (that bullshit), play the melody!

Make the drummer sound good.

Discrimination is important.

You’ve got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

ALL REET!

Always know….(MONK)

It must be always night, otherwise they wouldn’t need the lights.

Let’s lift the band stand!!

I want to avoid the hecklers.

Don’t play the piano part, I’m playing that. Don’t listen to me. I’m supposed to be accompanying you!

The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good.

Don’t play everything (or every time); let some things go by. Some music just imagined. What you don’t play can be more important that what you do.

A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

Stay in shape! Sometimes a musician waits for a gig, and when it comes, he’s out of shape and can’t make it.

When you’re swinging, swing some more.

(What should we wear tonight? Sharp as possible!)

Always leave them wanting more.

Don’t sound anybody for a gig, just be on the scene. These pieces were written so as to have something to play and get cats interested enough to come to rehearsal.

You’ve got it! If you don’t want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any case, you got it! (To a drummer who didn’t want to solo)

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along and spoil it.

I would make only one change, to #8: Learn more about ALL the styles you meet. Don’t be shallow and superficial, earnestly try to get inside the music and find out what makes it tick. Even if you don’t like the music, ask yourself, “Why do I hate this stuff, yet others think it’s great?” because every CD you find was made because SOMEBODY thought it was worth putting on CD (self-produced CD’s excepted

While working on the landmark Lanquidity recording, Sun Ra had the Arkestra members listen to Donna Summers over and over and over. The band complained. Sonny told them, “This corny shit is somebody’s dreams and hopes and aspirations. Don’t be so hip.’