A Quote by Joy Harjo
I love the sound of the saxophone. It became my singing voice, and it sounds so human. The saxophone could carry the words past the border of words. It can carry it a little bit farther.
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The saxophone is so human. Its tendency is to be rowdy, edgy, talk too loud, bump into people, say the wrong words at the wrong time, but then, you take a breath all the way from the center of the earth and blow. All that heartache is forgiven. All that love we humans carry makes a sweet, deep sound and we fly a little.
The saxophone was created to mimic the human voice and I think that's why I gravitated toward the saxophone eventually. I'd loved the clarinet, but there's something about the saxophone that just grabs you.
I originally started playing saxophone. I started singing a little bit when I got into middle school, when I realized girls didn't really date the dude with the saxophone.
I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone. The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the human voice and when Oliver plays with other sax players, it's like a dialogue.
I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.
Switch to piano! No. Really, if you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice. Of course, it would be best if you could actually sing with your own voice. The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. Therefore, the challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument or 'voice' that is outside of your body. I love that challenge and have for over forty-five years. As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.
Today we are going to talk about words. You know, words are containers for power. They carry creative or destructive power. They carry positive or negative power. We can choose our words and we should do it carefully.
When poetry separates from song, then the words have to carry all the rhythm themselves; they have to do all the work. They can't rely on the singing voice.
Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than the eye.
Women are like dogs really. They love like dogs, a little insistently. And they like to fetch and carry and come back wistfully after hard words, and learn rather easily to carry a basket.
When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher.
I was [ on Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition] with Ralph Bowen, and Joel Frahm, Jimmy Greene, John Ellis. You can't play the saxophone better than any of those guys play. So many of those things that those guys could do I wish I could do now, let alone then.
I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!
I'll never feel as comfortable singing as I do playing. The mandolin is my real voice. My actual voice is sort of my secondary voice, but I love to do it and I love giving people relief from playing with a little bit of singing.
Throughout the evening I would be recording these long saxophone delays and about four hours into the concert, if I wanted to take a break I would just play back the saxophone.
I do love perusing the dictionary to find how many words I don't use - words that have specific, sharp, focused meaning. I also love the sound of certain words. I love the sound of the word pom-pom.
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