Top 14 Quotes & Sayings by Ray Brown

Coming down off crack is like the worst depression. The worst.

Well, jazz is to me, a complete lifestyle. It's bigger than a word. It's a much bigger force than just something that you can say. It's something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

A 'For Sale' sign in your yard during the holidays is like a 'kick me' sign. You are telling buyers you are a distressed seller.

The best time to buy a home is always five years ago.

People are trading distance for dollars.

They played so good it was frightening. And I, of course, being young, was in awe of everything that was going on and rightly so. I mean, it was too good to believe.

I will have a song that I'm in love with for a couple of months and then I'll go to something else. That's just constantly changing. And sometimes I will go back to old one that I haven't heard for a long time.

We had to do a lot of rehearsals to get it so that it was playable. What it did was make you practice. That's good for any musician to have that kind of pressure. It brings things out of you that might not come out if you don't have to reach for something all the time.

[Thelonious] Monk is a subject in itself. I mean, most piano players in most big bands sit down and they play with the band, you know. But Monk would just sit there like this. And all of a sudden there'd be a pause from all the trumpets and everything and Monk would go 'plink!' like that. And everybody would go 'Yeah!

Jazz is something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.

Jazz is something you have to feel, something you have to live.

I went up to his [Hank Jones'] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York.

The amazing thing about Sweets [Edison] was that he exactly spoke the way that he played! He was really unique, the one and only. He was one of the greatest Blues players that I ever heard and played with. Nobody can play like Sweets man, nobody! Most of us, musicians, frequently quote Sweets' phrases in our solos. Like Lester Young, Sweets had a big influence on us musicians, especially when we play some Blues.