Mary Lou Williams Quotes

One way and another I was having a ball - playing gigs, jamming and listening to fine musicians. Then came a crisis at home. My stepfather fell sick, and it meant I had to support the family.

I wonder what an agent would do if he had to travel with the band he's booking.

It's not what you play, it's how you play it.

Anything you are shows up in your music - jazz is whatever you are, playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

If you work on your talent, the plans will fall in automatically.

I have been tied up with music for about as long as I can remember. By the time I was four I was picking out little tunes my mother played on the reed organ in the living-room.

Within a few hours I had them off, was about ready to play the shows. That night I opened, and during the week Harris was over to the house to talk my mother into letting me leave home.